Bristol is decently connected, better than its rail-commuting numbers suggest and thinner than a city this size ought to be. Two main stations anchor it, with a scatter of smaller ones on the suburban lines. Barely one worker in a hundred actually commutes by train. Nearly two thousand bus stops cover the city, though only about one in twenty rides them to work. The links are here. The habit of using them is patchier.
On rail, Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway do the heavy lifting, with direct trains to London and a suburban network threading through smaller stops like Clifton Down, Redland, Montpelier, Bedminster, Lawrence Hill and Sea Mills. For all that track, only around one worker in a hundred commutes by train, which says less about the trains and more about how compact and cycle-minded daily Bristol is. Buses fill the space they leave, with close to eighteen hundred stops spread across the city, though the share commuting by bus sits at about six in a hundred. The coverage is broad. The uptake is modest.
Digital connectivity is the stronger story. Gigabit broadband now reaches more than nine in ten Bristol postcodes, so the work-from-home crowd, and close to four in ten of the workforce belong to it, do it on a fast line rather than a struggling one. For a city where that big a slice has stopped commuting altogether, a reliable connection counts for as much as any timetable.
For a typical journey, the city centre sits about ten minutes from the average doorstep by car and closer to twenty by public transport, with cycling landing neatly between the two. That is the shape of Bristol in a single line: short distances, real congestion, and a bike often quicker than the bus. Most people either drive, close to a third of them, or skip the trip entirely and work from home.
So how well connected is Bristol? Better than average, with strong broadband and genuine rail and bus coverage let down a little by traffic and by a city that would rather cycle, walk or stay put than queue at a stop. Good bones, ordinary flow, and a shade above the middle when you add it all up.