Erith is well connected. Its own station runs direct trains into central London, and its buses keep running at weekends. Nine in ten addresses can get gigabit broadband, and every network covers every postcode. The longest everyday trip is the one to hospital. Erith began as a riverside port, and getting people up the river to London is still what it does best.
Erith Rail Station serves the town centre and Slade Green Rail Station serves the eastern side, with Belvedere and Barnehurst stations close by to the west and south. At the 2021 Census about 11% of working residents went to work by train and about 9% by bus. The area has 154 bus stops.
Most people in Erith get to work by other means. At that Census, about 38% drove and about 28% worked from home, while 5% walked and 1% cycled. About 28% of households have no car, and about 28% have two or more. Erith's carless households and its multi-car households are almost exactly the same size, and they live on the same streets.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled averages for the area, worked out in 2019. They put the nearest town centre about 10 minutes away by car, 16 by public transport, 12 by bike and 21 on foot. Almost everything is reachable within twenty minutes, whichever way you travel.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 89% of premises, with ultrafast at the same level and superfast at about 99%. No premises fall below the legal minimum service. Every postcode gets 4G or 5G from every operator, so the phone signal never comes up when choosing a street here.
For everyday trips, the same Department for Transport model puts a GP about 7 minutes away by car, 10 on foot and 10 by public transport. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or on foot. Work is about 9 minutes by car and 19 by public transport. Hospital is the exception, at about 23 minutes by car, 47 by public transport and nearly two hours on foot. The distances in those figures stay accurate. The public transport times are the weakest of the set, because they date from 2019 and some services have been cut since. In Erith the hospital trip is where the connections run out.
The current bus service is better than the bus stop count suggests. The 138 stops with service data average about 200 scheduled departures each on a weekday and around 11 buses an hour at the peak. All 138 have a weekend service.
Road noise is the price of all that traffic. Official mapping treats 65 decibels as the level where road noise becomes significant, and about 62% of Erith's postcodes are near or above it. The loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source: about 13% of postcodes are near the 65-decibel level from trains, peaking at 70. Check the government's noise map for the exact postcode, especially near the dual carriageway across Erith Marshes and near the railway. These maps can't tell you how a particular bedroom sounds at night.
The area has 13 public charge points with 30 connectors between them, and 3 of those are rapid. For most electric car owners here, charging is something to plan ahead. Few will manage it during a quick shop.
Connections are one of Erith's real strengths. Trains, buses and broadband all work well, and the only trip that takes real effort is the one to hospital.