A - Z Challenge 2024 - T is for Transport

This year I'm blogging about my local area.  

My area?  Highams Park which is in the borough of Waltham Forest in North East London, (UK) a little known place that nestles between Chingford and Woodford that most people only come to if they have a specific reason to - if not we usually get bypassed.  Suits us.

Having lived in Forest Gate in East London for 36 years (and for my husband 65 years!) moving was a big deal for us.  But we've been in Highams Park since September 2020 so I feel I know enough about it now to fill out 26 posts! 

We've only moved just over 5 miles but we didn't know this area at all before moving here.  Although of course we did have a good look around when looking for a house and there were a number of things we wanted on our check list.

Transport was near the top of the list.  We do have a car but we wanted to future proof our location as much as possible.  For example we wanted somewhere that we could walk to the things we needed or use public transport if we got to the stage of not being able to drive.  Plus it is becoming more and more difficult to drive around London, not to mention expensive.  Fortunately our car is fairly new so it doesn't fall into the emissions charging scheme but finding anywhere to park is becoming harder all the time.  I try not to use the car if I don't need to but sometimes you just have to - for example going to our daughter's house, which is just over 3 miles away, takes 10 minutes by car, 36 minutes by bus & train, except the bus is currently on a major diversion and would take much longer than Google thinks.

Anyway.....we are a 10 minute walk from Highams Park Station.  This is on the London Overground (Liverpool Street to Chingford line).  It is 2 stops to Walthamstow with a connection to the London Underground.  Trains run every 15 minutes most of the time and are air conditioned.  At rush hour they can be a bit crowded travelling home but not sardine style crowded - just seats full and quite a few people standing.  Going into London is never a problem as we are the last but one stop on the line.

We can also get to Walthamstow by bus - the stop is right opposite our house and the return stop is about 200 yards down the road.  Walthamstow has a busy bus station with lots of routes available to us.

We could also get to the Central Line of the Underground by getting a bus in the opposite direction to Woodford station.  Except there is currently a problem with a road bridge that goes over the railway lines close to the station.  It needs to be reinforced so currently the bus is driving 3 sides of a rectangular diversion if that makes sense.  Originally the signs said the diversion would be in place until 31st March.  That was revised to 30th September and today I noticed that a couple of signs now say "until further notice".  It's not looking good.

As a further problem - our daughter lives the other side of the tracks from us so we have to cross them.  There is a crossing point close to her house but, the crossing point between that one, and the one that is totally closed, is only half open - with traffic lights controlling the traffic.  It makes for fun when I'm doing the school run for my Grandson, especially if the traffic lights break!  There are only certain points where you can cross over the railway and everyone seems to be trying to do just that.

Thankfully I only have to cross that bridge once or twice a week.

The London Overground system actually connects areas of London quite well with many stations interchanging with the Underground system:

Sorry for the poor quality of this - you can view the original here.

But soon our section will be known as the Weaver Line - all the various sections are being given names.  You can read more about this here.

The renaming and all the rebranding that it will entail is costing over £6 million.  I'm sure there are better things that money could be spent on.