Cricklewood is very well connected, and the bus does most of the work. There are two stations on the line south. Hundreds of bus stops get around two dozen buses an hour at peak. About half of households manage without a car, and more than a third of workers don't commute at all.
Cricklewood Rail Station has been on this line since 1868, when it opened as Childs Hill and Cricklewood, and Brent Cross West Station added a second stop at the northern end of the area in late 2023. Even with both, only about 4% of working residents took the train to work at the 2021 Census. The buses carry more people. The area has 336 bus stops, and about 14% of working residents went to work by bus. Buses have run from the Crown to Regent Street since 1883, and the habit has stuck.
At the same census, about 36% of working residents worked from home, which was the biggest share by some way. About 18% drove, 5% walked and 3% cycled. About half of households have no car at all and 13% have two or more. Most of the people who live here get to work without a car, if they leave home at all.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times for the area put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 14 by public transport, 11 by bike and 17 on foot. The same 2019 statistics put the nearest GP about 7 minutes away by car, on foot or by public transport, and a food store about 7 minutes away on foot or by car. A hospital is about 19 minutes by car and 32 by public transport, and the nearest large group of jobs is about 4 minutes by car and 21 by public transport. The distances in those figures do not change, but bus and train timetables have been cut back since 2019, so the public transport times are the ones to trust least. Almost every daily errand is a short walk, and only the hospital needs planning.
The bus service is the current part of the picture. Across the 305 stops with timetable data, the average stop has about 440 scheduled departures on a weekday and around 24 an hour at peak, and 304 of those 305 stops have buses at weekends. Many places count a stop with a couple of buses a day as a service. That is not what having a bus stop means here.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 84% of premises, the same share as ultrafast, and superfast reaches 99%. No premises fall below the legal minimum speed, and every postcode has a 4G or 5G signal on every network. Cricklewood is as well connected online as it is by bus.
Road noise is the price of all that traffic. Official noise mapping treats 65 decibels as the level where road noise becomes significant, and about 81% of Cricklewood's postcodes are near or above it, with the loudest band reaching 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source with its own figures, and about 74% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels from trains, again peaking at 75. Neither number tells you what a particular bedroom sounds like. Stand in the room you would sleep in at rush hour with the window open, and you will know.
There are 290 public charge points in the area with 321 connectors between them, and 8 of those are rapid chargers. With only 8 rapid units, most electric car owners here will be charging overnight more often than topping up during a quick trip to the shops.
Connections are one of Cricklewood's real strengths. A dense bus network, two stations and fast broadband cover almost everything, and the cost is the noise all those connections bring.