Richmond is well connected, and most of its residents barely use the connections. Three stations serve the town and its neighbours. The buses come every few minutes at the busiest stops. The broadband is fast nearly everywhere. Two thirds of the working population stayed home anyway.
Richmond (London) station is the main stop, with North Sheen and Kew Gardens stations serving the northern and eastern ends of the area, Kew and North Sheen included. At the 2021 Census about 4% of working residents commuted by train and about 3% by bus, from an area with 116 bus stops.
The commute that matters here is the one that never happens. About 65% of working residents worked from home at the 2021 Census, a count taken while the pandemic was still keeping offices empty. About 12% drove, 5% walked and 3% cycled. Roughly a third of households have no car at all, while about 17% have two or more. In a town this compact, giving up the car is a lifestyle choice that costs very little.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 8 minutes away by car, 9 by bike, and 10 by public transport or on foot. When walking ties with the bus, the town centre is effectively the front garden.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 83% of premises and superfast about 96%, and no premises fall below the legal minimum service. Every part of the area gets 4G or 5G from every mobile network. For a population that mostly works from home, that is the infrastructure that counts.
On the same Department for Transport model, the nearest GP is about 7 minutes by car, 8 on foot and 8 by public transport, and a food store about 6 minutes' walk or 7 by car. Employment centres are about 8 minutes by car and 10 by public transport. The nearest hospital is further out, about 19 minutes by car and 36 by public transport. These are modelled averages for the area, so distances to fixed places hold up well, while the public transport times come from 2019 timetables and are the ones most likely to have aged. A hospital half an hour away by bus is the one weak link in an otherwise short list.
The buses are a proper service. Across the 97 stops with timetable data, the average stop sees about 419 scheduled departures on a weekday and around 22 in the busiest hour, and every one of those stops has a service at weekends.
Traffic is the price of all this access. About 90% of Richmond's postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official mapping treats it as significant, and the loudest band reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source and puts about 46% of postcodes near or above the same threshold, peaking at 70 decibels. The 1930s dual carriageway that cut Richmond off from Kew still makes itself heard. The government's noise maps show which side of the road and the railway a shortlisted house is on, and it is worth looking.
For electric cars, there are 101 public charge points in and around the area with 176 connectors between them, 7 of them rapid. With so few rapid units, most owners will charge overnight or plan around a slow charger, and few will top up in the time it takes to buy lunch on George Street.
Richmond is one of the better-connected places in its corner of London, with frequent buses, three stations and broadband good enough for a town that mostly logs on. The traffic noise is what the convenience costs.