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Is Cambridge a cheap city to live?

Commuting: Between Oxford and Cambridge, which is the easier city to live in, for a person working in London?

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    Short answer based on my experience and information - I'd prefer to live in London, if working in London. Longer answer with explanation based on a single criteria (commute length, cost and quality) - I have visited both Oxford and Cambridge, and both are great places to live, and study. However, many people may have houses in these two cities, or could be paying mortgage on the comparably larger houses or flats which are available in these cities for the same monthly mortgage, when compared to London. And so, many people may have to use the train to commute to and from these cities to London. :-) Based on search results from http://nationalrail.co.uk, and with Canary Wharf considered as a destination, the cost and length of commute from Oxford appears to be more (best case 1 hour 46 minutes) compared to Cambridge (best case 1 hour 33 minutes). This, however, could change drastically when the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail service goes live, which will cut down journey times from the west to Canary Wharf and some other stations in the east significantly. First Great Western, which is normally used by commuters from Oxford has issues with timeliness, overcrowding and service cancellation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Western#Overcrowding I was a daily commuter to Ealing Broadway on FGW for a couple of years from Southall, a much closer station than Oxford, but shifted to using the Central Line from Greenford due to extreme overcrowding and cancelled trains. There have been days where I've had to wait anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour during typical working day mornings because trains were too full to board, or because services were cancelled. I've not travelled on First Capital Connect during the morning rush hour, but it seems that the story is not very different there too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Capital_Connect#Overcrowding I'm not sure about the differences in rent between Oxford and Cambridge, but if given a chance to work in London again, I'd definitely live in London, perhaps in a low crime location in Zone 5 or 6 with a bit more greenery and less dense buildup.

Govind Dutt Pullat at Quora Visit the source

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Depends which end of London you work in. Oxford trains come into Paddington, Cambridge ones into Kings Cross or Liverpool Street.  Either way, commuting is going to be expensive, time-consuming and frequently frustrating.  I live near an Underground station in suburban London.  My life is immeasurably improved by not having to commute even the short distance into central London.

Laurence Payne

I'd say Cambridge - faster train times and quicker by road (M11). You hear about delays into London from the West (Oxford) more often. Cambridge is a more relaxed place, too; but much colder than Oxford in the Winter. But if you work in the West of London, maybe Oxford. And the villages between Oxford & London are definitely better served by road and rail than between Cambridge and London.

Mike Isaac

Whilst I didn't live in Cambridge, I lived a few miles outside of the city, I did commute into London for a year. My commute involved driving from my village locate to the train station. A journey that 'should' take about 15mins. It would vary but a journey time of 30mins wasn't uncommon and this was due to the traffic within the city centre heading towards the station. Then there's the parking charges, if I recall about £7ish a day. Then it was the train journey into London. Everyone will tell you that Cambridge is only 45mins away by train. This is true when you're taking an off-peak train. During peak travel hours, the length of journey is closer to 1hour 15mins. There's are additional stops between Cambridge and Kings Cross during the peak periods. Following that I then had to cross London all the way to Hammersmith, this added an additional 45mins on a good day. As such, I faced around 2hours 30mins each day, obviously living more centrally to Cambridge could reduce that, depending on your proximity to the station and how you would travel to it, and where in London you would be working. After several months of that, I actually changed my commute. I would drive to Debden, on the Central Line. A drive of about 1hour followed by the Tube for about 1hour 30mins. So the same travel time but since so much was spent in my car, far more comfortable for me.

Mark Rowlands

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