Hi all,

I am new in here and I would like your opinion and help. I found a job in London while my wife got a position in Oxford and we were thinking of living in Oxford as it is slightly cheaper and I would commute daily to London. By reading other threads it seems that the most convenient way is to take the train but the annual ticket is ridiculously expensive (~5000£ !!!!!). The buses is another option but it would also mean that I will be spending at least 3h commuting. I do have a car and I was wondering if it is worth driving to 3rd or 4th zone in London to avoid congestion charges, park at a station and then use the underground to get to zone 1. Would this be a good idea? Any other reccomendations?

On Tue, 10 Oct 2017 12:32:45 +0100
GeorgeK wrote:
Hi all,

I am new in here and I would like your opinion and help. I found a job
in London while my wife got a position in Oxford and we were thinking of
living in Oxford as it is slightly cheaper and I would commute daily to
London. By reading other threads it seems that the most convenient way
is to take the train but the annual ticket is ridiculously expensive
(~5000£ !!!!!). The buses is another option but it would also mean that
I will be spending at least 3h commuting. I do have a car and I was
wondering if it is worth driving to 3rd or 4th zone in London to avoid
congestion charges, park at a station and then use the underground to
get to zone 1. Would this be a good idea? Any other reccomendations?

The underground station car parks arn't free and you'll get stuck in jams on
the M40 anyway. Whatever you do either you or your wife are in for a very
expensive and/or long commute. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to check
all this before you came here.

Another possibility is for you and your wife to buy a house halfway
between Oxford and London. My guess is that Oxford house prices
are quite high. Somewhere a bit off the beaten track might be
cheaper, and your commute will require less time and less money.
Is your wife able to commute or does she need to live in Oxford?

In message , at 12:32:45 on Tue, 10
Oct 2017, GeorgeK remarked:

I am new in here and I would like your opinion and help. I found a job
in London while my wife got a position in Oxford and we were thinking of
living in Oxford as it is slightly cheaper and I would commute daily to
London. By reading other threads it seems that the most convenient way
is to take the train but the annual ticket is ridiculously expensive
(~5000£ !!!!!). The buses is another option but it would also mean that
I will be spending at least 3h commuting. I do have a car and I was
wondering if it is worth driving to 3rd or 4th zone in London to avoid
congestion charges, park at a station and then use the underground to
get to zone 1. Would this be a good idea? Any other reccomendations?

I've been in exactly the same situation (give or take) and you need to
think about several things:

Is the "Oxford night life" something you aspire to (as a potential local
resident), or is that irrelevant.

Commuting the last two miles into Oxford (depending on the exact
location of your wife's employment) is by far the most challenging
exercise here.

When I had to travel regularly from east Oxfordshire to London, the most
sustainable routing was M40/A40 to Ickenham, park, and get the tube.
Next best perhaps transfer at Rickmansworth.

Does your wife drive?

Living in (or using the P&R at) Headington [which I don't regard as "in
Oxford"], might be a useful compromise.

There are many other villages in east Oxfordshire which will have
cheaper housing and viable railheads to London and busheads[1] to
Oxford.

It might even be cheaper to leapfrog Oxford and consider living
somewhere like Didcot and both commute the different distances
eastwards. When I was looking at this (admittedly some time ago) I
favoured Swindon, and colleagues were looking at Hungerford.

[1] Is that even a word.
--
Roland Perry

The underground station car parks arn't free and you'll get stuck in jams on
the M40 anyway. Whatever you do either you or your wife are in for a very
expensive and/or long commute. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to check
all this before you came here.

Agreed. A number also drive out to the M40 junction & park there, where the London coaches call. But your coach or drive to outer zones will take the same time as you suggest, and possibly more than 3 hours in total. That's why the vast majority take the train and stomach the price.

Thanks for your reply Robin. We were considering this possibility but the cumulative expenses for the season tickets from e.g. Reading (or any other town in between) to Oxford and Reading to London were way more than the 5000£ season ticket from Oxford to London while at the same time we would live in a town with less going on compared to either London or Oxford (I think).

On 2017\10\10 14:25, Roland Perry wrote:

When I had to travel regularly from east Oxfordshire to London, the most
sustainable routing was M40/A40 to Ickenham, park, and get the tube.
Next best perhaps transfer at Rickmansworth.

Not Hillingdon?

Thank you all for your replies. My wife doesn't drive but we are willing to live on the suburbs of Oxford provided that she can take at least the bus to work which is at the city center. We are mainly interested in living near a city with certain amenities (restaurants, bars, shopping street, etc).

The idea of staying at Headington doesn't sound bad as it seems to be less than 30min from the city center by bus. From your replies, it seems that the 6th zone (Ickenham, Hillington or Rickmansworth) is the closest I can get by car to London before being stuck in the jam.

When I checked the commute from Didcot to London by train it wasn't faster (or cheaper) compared to Oxford. You reckon that Didcot would be more convenient though?

On 10/10/2017 14:35, GeorgeK wrote:
Thanks for your reply Robin. We were considering this possibility but
the cumulative expenses for the season tickets from e.g. Reading (or any
other town in between) to Oxford and Reading to London were way more
than the 5000£ season ticket from Oxford to London while at the same
time we would live in a town with less going on compared to either
London or Oxford (I think).

Surely it all comes down to what you will accept - the three hour
commute by bus/coach is likely to be more than that unless you live and
work at either end of the bus route. If you have to commute further in
London, don't forget the cost of a travelcard can easily be another
£1000 per year or more.

Whilst it's convenient to live somewhere where things are going on, how
often are you really going to take advantage of that, and if those
places were 30 mins away to save even 5 mins each way on your commute if
you only did them once a week.

At the end of the day, trains work but cost money - I've also no idea
whether you'd be likely to get a seat or not, with standing for an hour
not being the most pleasant of things. Buses are subject to the
vagaries of traffic - the advertised 90 minutes can be an awful lot
longer on bad days.

Given you just don't know, I'd suggest trying some options at typical
commute times - if you don't like it one day, you're going to seriously
detest it after weeks and months.

One thing to consider, is that whilst Oxford isn't particularly great
traffic wise, if your wife was to commute there and you lived in London
(or its outskirts), at least she'd be going against the majority of the
flow of traffic for a lot of the journey.

Someone Somewhere wrote:
One thing to consider, is that whilst Oxford isn't particularly great
traffic wise, if your wife was to commute there and you lived in London
(or its outskirts), at least she'd be going against the majority of the
flow of traffic for a lot of the journey.

A friend of mine did that - living in Victoria (so just round the corner
from Victoria Coach Station) and taking the buses to Oxford a few days a
week. It wasn't too bad apparently - but I dread to think what the rent for
living in Victoria was!

Another option of living halfway is to consider the Chiltern route -
Kidlington, Bicester, High Wycombe, etc, possibly even Banbury. I don't
know how that works out in terms of times and costs.

Also worth working out what you're pay in rent/mortgage for each place: pay
1Kpa extra on the season ticket but save 2K on rent?

OP: Where in London is your job? That could make a big difference. For
instance, if you work in Canary Wharf you might want to be near Crossrail.
That either implies Reading or getting the X90 or Oxford Tube to Marble Arch
and walking to Bond St for Crossrail.

Theo