Cambridge Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Cambridge, 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, 12:07 PM

Is the commute in Cambridge longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 12:07 PM

Commute Time Burden in Cambridge: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cambridge spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 197 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% less time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.9 minutes.

Cambridge holds about 1.7% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cambridge would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,445 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)
Cambridge	23.7 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,112	4,879
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.

Cambridge Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.7 minutes to get to work in Cambridge. That's 6% 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. Working from home is the most common commute choice, followed by driving. About 30.7% work from home. This differs from the national pattern, where driving is the most common commute choice.

How People Get to Work in Cambridge

Driving is 67% less common in Cambridge than the Massachusetts average (22.4% vs 68.2%).

Walking is unusually common in Cambridge: 4.7 times more than the Massachusetts average (19.1% vs 4.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Cambridge: 9.7 times more than the Massachusetts average (7.8% vs 0.8%).

Cambridge stands out for active commuting: 26.9% of workers walk or bike to work, 5.5 times the Massachusetts average of 4.9%.

Commute Mode Trends in Cambridge, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Cambridge 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	Worked at Home	Car	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	6.0%	36.9%	22.1%	27.7%	6.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	6.1%	35.4%	22.6%	28.1%	6.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	7.2%	34.8%	22.4%	27.9%	6.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	6.8%	34.3%	23.9%	26.6%	7.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	6.9%	34.1%	23.8%	27.0%	7.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	7.2%	32.8%	24.4%	27.8%	6.9%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	7.4%	32.2%	23.7%	28.7%	7.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	6.9%	31.7%	24.5%	28.9%	7.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	7.1%	31.1%	24.0%	29.8%	7.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	7.5%	29.9%	24.4%	29.4%	7.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%
2019	7.3%	30.1%	24.1%	29.1%	7.7%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%
2020	13.5%	27.7%	23.9%	26.3%	7.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%
2021	20.3%	26.6%	22.1%	22.2%	6.8%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%
2022	25.1%	25.5%	19.8%	21.3%	6.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%
2023	28.3%	24.2%	19.3%	19.3%	7.3%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%
2024	30.7%	22.4%	19.1%	18.0%	7.8%	1.3%	0.5%	0.1%

Driving's share fell from 36.9% in 2009 to 22.4% in 2024, down 14.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cambridge: its share of workers rose from 6.0% in 2009 to 30.7% in 2024, up 24.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 23.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 27.7% to 18.0% of workers (down 9.7 percentage points).

Walking overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2024 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 24.5% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 19.1%.

The most common way to get to work changed: driving led in 2009, while working from home led in 2024.

Commute Start Times in Cambridge

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cambridge?

The bars show when commuters in Cambridge 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		1.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		0.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		1.3%
6:00-6:29 AM		3.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		4.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		8.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		19.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		14.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		18.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		6.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Cambridge is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 19.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.5% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 3.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Massachusetts: 42.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (36.5%) 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 Cambridge, 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 Cambridge 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 Cambridge 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	Cambridge	Massachusetts	United States
2009	8:27 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:29 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:31 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:32 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:32 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:32 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:32 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:31 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:29 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:30 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:29 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:31 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:30 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:30 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:30 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:32 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cambridge were on the road by 8:32 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (8:27 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Cambridge now leave 55 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 Cambridge has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Cambridge's commute time compare?

Metric	Cambridge	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.7 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	30.7%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	19.1%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	18.0%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Cambridge is 23.7 minutes, shorter than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

18.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 19.1% commute by walking, higher than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Cambridge, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Cambridge, MA is the largest of the 6 cities compared here, 117,266 residents against a local median of 59,237. The measure that sets Cambridge, MA apart most is one-way commute: 23.7 min, 21% below the local median of 30.1 min. That is the better end of the local range on this measure.

The cities themselves spread 5.3 min on one-way commute, so Cambridge, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Cambridge, MA has the lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Cambridge, MA	117,266	23.7 min #1/6	30.7% #3/6	8:32 AM #6/6
Somerville, MA	81,027	31.2 min	31.4%	8:13 AM
Medford, MA	59,237	30.1 min	26.8%	8:02 AM
Brookline, MA	63,198	27.0 min	30.1%	8:15 AM
Watertown, MA	35,594	26.2 min	29.1%	8:05 AM
Arlington, MA	46,270	31.5 min	34.5%	8:07 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 197 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,112 at a typical national wage. That's 7% less than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Cambridge, 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 Cambridge, Massachusetts?

About 30.7% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Cambridge would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,445 at the same national wage assumption used above.