Brookline Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Brookline, 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

Is the commute in Brookline longer than the national average?

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

Commute Time Burden in Brookline: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Brookline spend about 54 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 225 hours, about 9.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.4 minutes.

Brookline holds about 0.9% of Massachusetts's population and accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Brookline would save about 90 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,786 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)
Brookline	27.0 min	53.9 min	225 hrs/yr	$6,965	4,197
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.

Brookline Commute Map

On average, it takes 27.0 minutes to get to work in Brookline. That's 20% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 09:00 AM – 09:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 30.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Brookline

Driving is 54% less common in Brookline than the Massachusetts average (31.6% vs 68.2%).

Walking is unusually common in Brookline: 3.6 times more than the Massachusetts average (14.8% vs 4.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Brookline: 5.0 times more than the Massachusetts average (4.0% vs 0.8%).

Brookline stands out for active commuting: 18.9% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.8 times the Massachusetts average of 4.9%.

Commute Mode Trends in Brookline, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Brookline 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	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	46.0%	6.2%	29.9%	13.5%	3.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	46.1%	6.8%	29.2%	13.5%	3.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	46.4%	7.8%	27.8%	13.6%	3.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	46.0%	7.6%	26.4%	15.0%	4.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2013	45.8%	7.9%	26.5%	14.7%	4.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	45.3%	7.2%	26.7%	15.8%	4.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	42.6%	6.8%	28.6%	16.5%	4.5%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%
2016	40.0%	6.3%	30.7%	16.8%	5.1%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%
2017	39.9%	6.7%	30.7%	16.3%	4.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%
2018	38.7%	7.0%	30.2%	17.0%	5.5%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%
2019	37.5%	7.4%	30.3%	17.2%	6.0%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%
2020	35.2%	14.8%	26.8%	16.2%	5.3%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	34.3%	20.6%	23.1%	15.6%	5.0%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	32.5%	23.4%	22.3%	15.5%	5.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	31.4%	27.0%	20.1%	15.2%	4.8%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	31.6%	30.1%	18.1%	14.8%	4.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2011 at 46.4% and lowest in 2023 at 31.4%. Overall it fell from 46.0% in 2009 to 31.6% in 2024, down 14.4 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Brookline: its share of workers rose from 6.2% in 2009 to 30.1% in 2024, up 23.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 22.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 29.9% to 18.1% of workers (down 11.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 17.2% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 14.8%.

Commute Start Times in Brookline

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Brookline?

The bars show when commuters in Brookline 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		1.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		0.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		0.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		22.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		12.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		14.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		1.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Brookline is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 22.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.5% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 2.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Massachusetts: 52.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.1%) 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 Brookline, 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 Brookline 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 Brookline 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	Brookline	Massachusetts	United States
2009	8:12 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:14 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:12 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:12 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:09 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:10 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:10 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:09 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:10 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:10 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:09 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:09 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:11 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:13 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:16 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Brookline were on the road by 8:16 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (8:12 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Brookline now leave 38 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 Brookline has moved 6 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Brookline in the whole series.

How does Brookline's commute time compare?

Metric	Brookline	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.0 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	09:00 AM – 09:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	30.1%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	14.8%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	18.1%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Brookline is 27.0 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

18.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 14.8% commute by walking, higher than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Brookline, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Brookline, MA is the 4th largest of the 6 cities compared here, 63,198 residents against a local median of 81,027. Nothing separates Brookline, 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, 4% below the local median at 30.1% against 31.4%. Brookline, MA has the 5th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Brookline, MA	63,198	27.0 min #4/6	30.1% #5/6	8:15 AM #4/6
Cambridge, MA	117,266	23.7 min	30.7%	8:32 AM
Watertown, MA	35,594	26.2 min	29.1%	8:05 AM
Newton, MA	88,909	25.1 min	32.2%	8:14 AM
Somerville, MA	81,027	31.2 min	31.4%	8:13 AM
Belmont, MA	27,165	30.7 min	31.5%	8:17 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Brookline, Massachusetts.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Brookline, Massachusetts?

Commuters here spend an estimated 225 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,965 at a typical national wage. That's 5% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Brookline, Massachusetts?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Brookline, Massachusetts. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 09:00 AM – 09:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

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

About 30.1% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Brookline would save about 90 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,786 at the same national wage assumption used above.