Gloucester Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Gloucester, 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 much time do drivers in Gloucester spend on the road daily?

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

Commute Time Burden in Gloucester: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Gloucester spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 149 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% less time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 7.7 minutes.

Gloucester holds about 0.4% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Gloucester would save about 60 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,846 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)
Gloucester	17.9 min	35.7 min	149 hrs/yr	$4,615	1,229
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.

Gloucester Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.9 minutes to get to work in Gloucester. That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 12.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Gloucester

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Gloucester, versus 0.1% in Massachusetts.

Biking is essentially absent in Gloucester, versus 0.8% in Massachusetts.

Commute Mode Trends in Gloucester, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Gloucester 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	83.1%	6.2%	4.0%	4.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	1.0%
2010	83.7%	5.7%	4.5%	4.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.9%
2011	83.0%	5.5%	5.5%	3.7%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.8%
2012	83.6%	5.6%	5.3%	3.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%
2013	83.2%	5.0%	5.5%	4.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	83.4%	5.7%	5.4%	4.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	83.6%	6.3%	4.6%	4.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	83.3%	6.0%	5.2%	5.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	83.5%	5.9%	5.1%	4.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	83.8%	5.7%	5.8%	3.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2019	84.9%	4.9%	5.5%	3.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	85.1%	5.4%	5.1%	2.9%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	83.4%	8.1%	4.5%	2.3%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	81.9%	9.5%	5.2%	2.1%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	80.6%	10.7%	4.8%	2.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	77.3%	12.7%	6.0%	2.2%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 85.1%. Overall it fell from 83.1% in 2009 to 77.3% in 2024, down 5.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Gloucester: its share of workers rose from 6.2% in 2009 to 12.7% in 2024, up 6.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.7% to 2.2% of workers (down 2.5 percentage points).

Walking overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2016 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Gloucester

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Gloucester?

The bars show when commuters in Gloucester 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		3.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		8.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		2.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Gloucester is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Massachusetts. Early starts are more common than in Massachusetts: 12.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush looks much like Massachusetts's: 49.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.8%) 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 Gloucester, 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 Gloucester 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 Gloucester 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	Gloucester	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:47 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:46 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:43 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:46 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:49 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:48 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:43 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:42 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:40 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Gloucester were on the road by 7:48 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Gloucester now leave 10 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 Gloucester has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Gloucester's commute time compare?

Metric	Gloucester	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.9 min	25.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 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	12.7%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	6.0%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.2%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Gloucester is 17.9 minutes, shorter than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

2.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 6.0% commute by walking, higher than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Gloucester, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Gloucester, MA compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Gloucester, MA	30,077	17.9 min #1/3	12.7% #3/3	7:47 AM #1/3
Beverly, MA	42,584	23.4 min	22.3%	7:53 AM
Marblehead, MA	20,308	30.8 min	34.0%	7:52 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 149 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,615 at a typical national wage. That's 30% less than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Gloucester, Massachusetts?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Gloucester, 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.