Arlington Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Arlington, Massachusetts: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:04 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Arlington?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:04 PM

Commute Time Burden in Arlington: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Arlington spend about 63 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 263 hours, about 10.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.9 minutes.

Arlington holds about 0.7% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Arlington would save about 105 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,255 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Arlington	31.5 min	63.0 min	263 hrs/yr	$8,139	2,549
Massachusetts	25.6 min	51.1 min	213 hrs/yr	$6,603	2,164
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Arlington Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.5 minutes to get to work in Arlington. That's 41% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 34.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Arlington

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Arlington: 4.3 times more than the Massachusetts average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 32% less common in Arlington than the Massachusetts average (46.5% vs 68.2%).

Biking is unusually common in Arlington: 5.8 times more than the Massachusetts average (4.7% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Arlington, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Arlington get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Walked	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	71.8%	5.4%	17.9%	1.9%	2.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	72.5%	5.6%	16.7%	2.1%	2.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2011	72.5%	5.8%	16.1%	2.5%	2.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	73.5%	6.0%	15.9%	2.0%	2.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	72.0%	5.7%	16.9%	2.8%	2.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	71.6%	5.5%	17.7%	3.0%	1.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	70.6%	5.6%	17.9%	3.3%	2.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	69.1%	5.7%	18.9%	3.2%	2.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	66.5%	6.6%	20.4%	3.3%	2.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	66.8%	7.0%	19.5%	3.8%	2.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	64.5%	7.1%	21.3%	3.7%	2.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	59.8%	14.9%	18.0%	3.7%	2.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	55.9%	22.1%	15.7%	3.6%	1.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	52.7%	26.3%	14.0%	4.0%	2.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	49.2%	30.5%	12.5%	4.7%	2.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	46.5%	34.5%	11.1%	4.7%	2.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 73.5%. Overall it fell from 71.8% in 2009 to 46.5% in 2024, down 25.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Arlington: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 34.5% in 2024, up 29.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 27.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 17.9% to 11.1% of workers (down 6.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Arlington

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Arlington?

The bars show when commuters in Arlington leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Massachusetts for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		1.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		0.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		1.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		18.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		10.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		11.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		2.9%

Arlington Massachusetts Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Arlington is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 18.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.5% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 4.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Massachusetts: 56.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.4%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Arlington, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Arlington Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Arlington next to Massachusetts and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Arlington	Massachusetts	United States
2009	8:04 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:05 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:08 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:10 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:07 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:08 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:07 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:06 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:03 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:02 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:58 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:00 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:58 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:02 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:07 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Arlington were on the road by 8:07 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (8:04 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Arlington now leave 29 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Arlington has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Arlington's commute time compare?

Metric	Arlington	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.5 min	25.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	34.5%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	11.1%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Arlington is 31.5 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

11.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 2.0% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Arlington, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Arlington, MA is the 3rd largest of the 6 cities compared here, 46,270 residents against a local median of 35,594. Nothing separates Arlington, MA sharply from the cities around it. Each measure below lands within 15% of the local median, close enough that the differences are within what survey sampling alone would produce.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 12% above the local median at 34.5% against 30.7%. Arlington, MA has the highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Arlington, MA	46,270	31.5 min #6/6	34.5% #1/6	8:07 AM #4/6
Belmont, MA	27,165	30.7 min	31.5%	8:17 AM
Winchester, MA	23,377	31.2 min	33.9%	7:53 AM
Watertown, MA	35,594	26.2 min	29.1%	8:05 AM
Medford, MA	59,237	30.1 min	26.8%	8:02 AM
Cambridge, MA	117,266	23.7 min	30.7%	8:32 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Is living in Arlington, Massachusetts good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 263 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,139 at a typical national wage. That's 23% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Arlington, Massachusetts?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Arlington, Massachusetts. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How much money can remote workers save in Arlington, Massachusetts?

About 34.5% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Arlington would save about 105 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,255 at the same national wage assumption used above.