flagrunner

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone knows if it's possible to walk to any terminal in Heathrow? I've done a google search but can't find any recent answers to this.

I'll have a rucksack and a morning to spare so happy to walk from one of the hotels, in fact this would be my preferred option.

Thanks!

lhrsfo

You might have more success in the UK Forum

nux

You can get to T4 and T5 (although not easily), but not T1/T2/T3.

See also: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...t1-2-3-t5.html

LondonElite

It's not designed for that. To get to the central terminals (2 and 3) you would have to go under the northern runway, and the only walkway through that is designated as an emergency walkway. The roads leading to both 4 and 5each have sections that don't have sidewalks/pavements, so you would be walking on the road. Not ideal and not recommended.

JY1024

Agreed! We'll move this over to the UK forum for further discussion. Thanks. /JY1024, TravelBuzz co-moderator

groundops

I tried to walk from Hilton to T5. The roads are not set up for it. One follows a pavement and then all of a sudden it stops and you are climbing over central reservations etc and walking along fast moving roads into oncoming traffic. The town planners did not design the roads near LHR to be pedestrian friendly.

Gagravarr

You can't walk to T2 or T3, the tunnel is vehicles only and there are signs up saying no pedestrians.

T5 is setup to allow you to walk to/from the terminal and the bus stops, carpark and Sofitel. Not really designed for walking from any further

T4 might be better - you can walk from the Hilton to the terminal, and the Hilton is the other side of the perimeter road. Won't be much fun though

The expected thing is to use one of the free buses to get around between the terminals, carparks, staff areas etc. (Note - not the hotel hoppa bus - that's paid for!)

Efrem

A long time ago this was possible. When they closed off pedestrian access from the north side of the airport (T1-3) they offset that by making trips on local buses free to/from anywhere within a mile or so of the airport. I'd plan my walk to end up at the closest bus stop on Bath Road (just east of Sipson Way, IIRC, but any local can tell you), then accept reality and let a big red thing with wheels and an engine take you from there on in.

Microwave

I'm reasonably certain it's possible to walk to T5, however it's not via the same ingress that cars use... I'm open to being disproven of course. T4 is definitely accessible, however the T2/T3 central terminal area isn't accessible since the side tunnel that used to be open to pedestrians is closed. As mentioned upthread, take a free bus from the Bath Road if you need to get to this area, or if you're really keen to walk it then walk to T4 and take the free transfer train from there (this is landside–don't try to get airside at T4 if that's not where you're departing).

ajax

I've actually spent a great deal of time on the perimeter road around LHR (don't ask) and concur with a lot fo what's been said above.

You can't walk to T1/2/3 (AKA 'Heathrow Central'). You can, however, take a free bus from many places around it. There is a zone (I can't remember the exact details but it says it on all of the bus-stop sign posts where this applies) within which bus drivers will take you to the Heathrow Central bus terminal for free.

You can definitely walk to T4.

Like the others, I'm not sure about T5. It's so far away from everything, I've never tried to walk there before.

Mizter T

It's possible to walk between T5 and Longford (a village on the north west perimeter of Heathrow) if you're prepared to ignore a sign or two and carefully cross a short bridge intended for buses and cyclists only, which has no pavement - the sight lines are good, and none of the buses should be going very fast, not least as the bridge is right between two junctions.

Heading to T5, once across the bridge from the roundabout you can take advantage of what very much looks like a pedestrian crossing, even though it's actually for bicycles, and end up on a pavement (shared used with cycles) adjacent to the perimeter fence, from where you can walk south to T5.

Google Streeview of the north side of the bridge (from the roundabout), and the south side (on the airport side).

Also the Bing Maps Bird's eye view is useful in showing the overview (though the imagery is pretty dated as it's pre T5 opening).

Gagravarr

I believe it's called the Heathrow Freeflow free fare zone.

You can see all the bus routes serving T2/T3, along with the stops that they make in the free zone, on this map from TFL. (There are other buses that are free in the zone, for T4 and T5, that map just does the ones serving the central terminals)

ajax

Oh, brilliant. Thanks - I thought I'd seen that somewhere before. That's exactly what I was getting at.

Efrem

Alert to Yanks: "pavement" in the UK is what we call a "sidewalk" on the left side of the pond. Mizter T is not saying that the short bridge has no finished surface.

GodAtum

i'm confused .. ive walked from one of the hotels along Bath Road to T3 before.