New Southgate is well connected for anyone who mainly needs a bus and a broadband line, and less so for anyone who needs the train. The buses run often from almost every stop. Fast broadband reaches nearly every door. Very few people commute by rail. Traffic noise reaches almost every street.
New Southgate Rail Station runs direct trains south into London through Finsbury Park, and north towards Hertfordshire. Bowes Park station is on the Bounds Green side, and the tube is at Arnos Grove. Even so, only about 3% of working residents went to work by train at the 2021 Census. About 8% took the bus, from an area with 157 bus stops. The tube station at Arnos Grove is a listed building, and it gets a lot more attention as architecture than as a commute for people here.
Working from home is the most common commute, at about 40% of working residents in 2021. About 24% drove. Walking accounted for about 4% and cycling about 2%. About a third of households have no car, while about 20% have two or more. The car-free flat and the two-car semi can be on the same road here, and the people in them get around in very different ways.
The bus service is good. Across the 136 stops with timetable data, the average stop has about 464 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 26 in the peak hour, and every one of those stops has weekend services. These are current timetables, and the buses are the real public transport network for New Southgate.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled averages for the area. Distances to fixed places don't change, but the public transport times date from 2019 and bus services have been cut since, so those are the least reliable of the set. On those figures the nearest town centre is about 11 minutes by car, 17 by public transport, 13 by bike and 25 on foot. A GP is about 7 minutes by car and about 9 on foot or by public transport. A food shop is about 7 minutes on foot, and a centre of employment about 14 minutes by car or 21 by public transport. A hospital is about 18 minutes by car and 34 by public transport. The hospital is the one everyday trip where you would want the car.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 89% of premises, ultrafast about 90% and superfast all of them. Every premises clears the government's minimum broadband standard, and all four mobile networks cover the area. For the four in ten who work from home, that matters more than any of the transport links above.
Road noise affects almost the whole area. About 100% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source. About 25% of postcodes are near or above the same 65-decibel level from the railway, also peaking at 75. These figures don't tell you how loud any particular house will be, so check whether the bedroom windows face the main road or the railway before you commit.
There are 43 public charge points in the area, with 59 connectors between them, and 8 are rapid. For most drivers, that means charging is something to plan for. You can't count on topping up while you do the shopping.
In practice, a commute from New Southgate usually means the bus or a drive. The station suits people heading into London by rail, and home-workers get the strongest part of the deal, fast broadband.
New Southgate is better connected than most people expect, mainly because of its buses and broadband. It falls short of the best mainly on noise and a rail service that few residents use for work.