Berkshire County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Berkshire County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Berkshire County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 140 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 34% less time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 8.8 minutes.

Berkshire County holds about 1.8% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 1.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Berkshire County would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,733 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)
Berkshire County	16.8 min	33.6 min	140 hrs/yr	$4,334	473
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.

Commute Time Map: Massachusetts Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 16.8 minutes to get to work in Berkshire County. That's 25% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 3 fastest counties in Massachusetts

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 14.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Berkshire County

• Car: 78.3%
• Worked at Home: 14.2%
• Walked: 4.8%
• Public Transportation: 1.5% unusually low
• Other: 0.8%
• Bicycle: 0.3% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Berkshire County: 4.5 times less than the Massachusetts average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Berkshire County: 4.4 times less than the Massachusetts average (1.5% vs 6.5%).

Biking is unusually rare in Berkshire County: 3.2 times less than the Massachusetts average (0.3% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Berkshire County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Berkshire County 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	88.2%	4.6%	4.9%	0.9%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	88.4%	4.0%	5.2%	0.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	88.8%	4.1%	4.5%	0.9%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	87.9%	4.3%	5.0%	1.1%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	87.8%	4.1%	5.2%	1.2%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	87.5%	4.6%	5.4%	1.3%	0.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	86.2%	5.3%	5.5%	1.3%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	85.3%	5.6%	6.2%	1.5%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	85.7%	5.6%	6.0%	1.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	85.3%	6.0%	6.0%	1.2%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	85.0%	5.9%	6.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	84.8%	7.0%	6.2%	1.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	83.5%	8.4%	5.8%	1.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	82.0%	10.5%	5.4%	1.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	79.8%	12.7%	5.2%	1.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	78.3%	14.2%	4.8%	1.5%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 88.8%. Overall it fell from 88.2% in 2009 to 78.3% in 2024, down 9.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Berkshire County: its share of workers rose from 4.6% in 2009 to 14.2% in 2024, up 9.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 6.4% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 4.8%.

Commute Start Times in Berkshire County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Berkshire County?

The bars show when commuters in Berkshire County 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	12:00-4:59 AM Berkshire County2.7% Massachusetts3.7%	2.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Berkshire County2.4% Massachusetts3.3%	2.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Berkshire County3.8% Massachusetts4.1%	3.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Berkshire County6.9% Massachusetts8.4%	6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Berkshire County10.7% Massachusetts9.5%	10.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Berkshire County12.9% Massachusetts14.3%	12.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Berkshire County14.9% Massachusetts11.7%	14.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Berkshire County12.5% Massachusetts13.5%	12.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Berkshire County8.9% Massachusetts7.1%	8.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Berkshire County7.6% Massachusetts7.7%	7.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Berkshire County3.4% Massachusetts3.2%	3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Berkshire County1.4% Massachusetts1.5%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Berkshire County7.8% Massachusetts7.1%	7.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Berkshire County4.2% Massachusetts4.9%	4.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Berkshire County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.7% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 9.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush looks much like Massachusetts's: 50.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.4%) 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 Berkshire County, 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 Berkshire County 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 Berkshire County 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.

• Berkshire County
• Massachusetts
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Berkshire County	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:51 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:52 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:51 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:50 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:50 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:53 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:55 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:57 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:58 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:57 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:57 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:58 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:56 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:55 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:53 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:51 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Berkshire County were on the road by 7:51 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Berkshire County now leave 14 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 Berkshire County has moved 6 minutes earlier.

How does Berkshire County's commute time compare?

Metric	Berkshire County	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.8 min	25.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	14.2%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	4.8%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.5%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Berkshire County is 16.8 minutes, shorter than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

1.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 4.8% commute by walking, higher than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau