Muswell Hill is well served by buses and broadband and badly served by rail. There is no station on the hill. The buses are frequent and run all week. More than half of working residents worked from home at the last census. Every trip to a train starts with a bus ride down the hill.
Muswell Hill has no Tube or National Rail station, and at the 2021 census only about 1% of working residents commuted by train. The nearest stations, Alexandra Palace and Hornsey, are down the slope to the east, and Highgate and Crouch End are reached by road. There are 63 bus stops across the area, and about 7% of working residents took the bus to work. With no station of its own, every train trip from the hill starts on a bus.
At the 2021 census, about 56% of working residents in Muswell Hill worked from home. Driving came next at about 15%, ahead of the bus at 7%, walking at 5% and cycling at 3%. About 36% of households have no car, and about 16% have two or more. A district with no station lives on its broadband.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre about 8 minutes away by car, 12 by public transport, 10 by bike and 14 on foot. Cars come out fastest, but no option is a long journey.
The same Department for Transport figures put a GP surgery about 7 minutes away whether you drive, walk or take public transport. A food store is about 8 minutes on foot and 7 by car. A hospital is about 16 minutes by car and about 30 by public transport. A place of employment is about 6 minutes by car and 16 by public transport. All of these are modelled averages for the area. The distances do not change, but the public transport times date from 2019, and services have been cut since then, so the public transport times are the least reliable of the set.
The buses themselves are frequent. Each stop sees an average of about 458 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 25 buses an hour at peak, and every stop has a weekend service. A bus at the stop every few minutes fills much of the gap left by the missing station.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 87% of premises in Muswell Hill, ultrafast about 90% and superfast all of them. Every mobile network covers the whole area with 4G or 5G. For the 56% who work from home, the broadband matters more to the commute than the buses do.
Road noise is everywhere on the hill. About 99% of Muswell Hill's postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which the official noise maps class road noise as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Before committing to a house on or near the Broadway, look up the exact address on the government's road noise maps, because the noise varies from one road to the next. Rail noise registers at none of the postcodes. Losing the railway at least took the train noise with it.
The area has 17 public charge points with 27 connectors between them, and three of those are rapid units. With so few rapid units, most electric car owners on the hill plan their charging around a slow connector.
For a commuter heading into town, the trip is usually a bus first and then a train or Tube from somewhere further down the hill. People who work from home, as more than half of working residents do, mostly do not make that trip.
Muswell Hill's connections are average. The buses and broadband are strong, but having no station means a longer trip for anyone who still commutes into town.