Well connected on paper, and by car in practice. The town has its own station. Fewer than one in twenty working residents commute by rail. More than a third drive, and nearly half don't travel to work at all. The station gives Walton its reputation, while the car and the broadband line do most of the work.
Walton-on-Thames station serves the town directly, Hersham station is close by and Weybridge station is a short way west, and all three run direct trains to London. Even so, the 2021 census found only about 4% of working residents commuting by train. Buses fare worse, with 92 stops in the area and about 1% of workers using them to get to work. Walton's link to Shepperton across the river has been rebuilt so many times since the 1750s that a road bridge standing since 2013 counts as settled infrastructure.
The real commute is shorter than any of that. About 46% of working residents worked from home at the census, and 37% drove. Walking accounted for 5% and cycling 2%. About 14% of households have no car, while about 40% have two or more. Walton runs on the driveway and the router, with the train for the occasional day in town.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics, modelled averages for the area, put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 11 by bike, 15 by public transport and 17 on foot. In Walton the town centre is close enough that the bike is faster than the bus.
The same Department for Transport set puts a GP about 9 minutes away by car, 14 by public transport and 16 on foot. A food store is about 9 minutes' walk or 7 minutes' drive, and the nearest large employment centre is about 12 minutes by car or 19 by public transport. A hospital takes about 25 minutes by car and 52 by public transport. These are averages across the whole area, not door-to-door times. The distances don't change, but the public transport times were modelled in 2019, and some of those services may not run the same way now.
Bus service is better measured by departures than by stops. Each of Walton's stops sees about 32 scheduled departures on a weekday on average, and about 2 an hour at peak. About 94% of stops with timetable data also have some weekend service. Two buses an hour at peak is a service you plan around. Check the timetable at the stop nearest the house you're considering, since the area average hides the stop with a bus every hour and the stop with three.
Gigabit broadband is available to about 86% of premises, ultrafast to about 89% and superfast to about 98%. No premises in the area fall below the universal service minimum. Every postcode also gets 4G or 5G from at least one operator and from all of them.
Road noise is the price of all those roads. More than 99% of Walton's postcodes lie near a road mapped at 65 decibels or more, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band present reaches 75 decibels. Rail is a separate source, with about 5% of postcodes near track mapped at 65 decibels or above, also peaking at 75. Neither figure says how loud a particular bedroom will be.
The area has 3 public charge points carrying 40 connectors between them, and none is rapid. In Walton, charging an electric car is something you book in advance, and nobody tops up while doing the weekly shop.
Walton is well connected by most measures, with strong broadband, a station of its own and a town centre within a short ride. The weaker links are the buses and the public chargers, so most of the getting about is done by car.