Forest Gate is well connected, with an Elizabeth line station in the middle and buses that run too often to need a timetable. About half of households have no car. A quarter of working residents work from home. The nearest town centre is as quick on foot as on the bus. Living here without a car is easy, but the traffic everyone else brings through is hard to get away from.
Forest Gate station is on the Elizabeth line, with trains west to Paddington and east to Shenfield, and Wanstead Park station adds the Suffragette line, with Woodgrange Park also close by. There are 78 bus stops in the area. At the 2021 census about 10% of working residents took the train to work and about 11% the bus.
Working from home was the most common single arrangement, at about 25% of working residents at that census, with driving at about 19%, walking at 7% and cycling at 3%. About 47% of households have no car and about 14% have two or more. More people here logged on from home than drove to work.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times put the nearest town centre about 7 minutes away by car, 9 by bike and 11 by public transport, and walking takes about 11 minutes too. The bus and your own feet get there at the same time, and the walk is free.
The same Department for Transport statistics, modelled averages for the area from 2019, put a GP about 6 minutes away on foot or by public transport and 7 by car, and a food shop about 6 minutes by either walking or driving. The public transport times are the least reliable figures in the set, because the distances have not moved since 2019 and some services may have. Employment is about 7 minutes away by car and 10 by public transport, and a 27-minute walk. The hospital is the exception: about 13 minutes by car, 29 by public transport and 43 on foot. Anyone without a car should plan a hospital appointment as a proper trip.
The bus figures are current. The 70 stops with timetable data average 322 departures each on a weekday and about 17 in the busiest hour, and every one has a weekend service. A missed bus here costs a few minutes and not much else.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 92% of premises and ultrafast about 94%, superfast covers every premises, and none falls below the legal minimum for broadband speed. Every network's 4G or 5G signal reaches the whole area.
The road noise is the price of all that traffic. About 85% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats it as significant, and the loudest band reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, with about 34% of postcodes near or above 65 decibels from trains and the loudest band again at 75. The railway that takes people out of Forest Gate is also, for a third of its postcodes, what they hear when they stay in. How loud any single house is depends on the walls and windows, so look the address up on the government's strategic noise maps and listen from the front room at rush hour.
There are 21 public charge points in the area with 22 connectors between them, and none of them is rapid. For electric car owners, charging here means plugging in overnight, because there is nowhere to top up during a quick stop at the shops.
Forest Gate is well connected by train, bus and fibre, and only the long hospital trip and the noise of the traffic passing through hold it back.