Lawrence Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Lawrence, 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, 4:03 PM

Is the commute in Lawrence longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:03 PM

Commute Time Burden in Lawrence: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lawrence spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 167 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.5 minutes.

Lawrence holds about 1.3% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lawrence would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,075 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)
Lawrence	20.1 min	40.2 min	167 hrs/yr	$5,187	2,502
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.

Lawrence Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.1 minutes to get to work in Lawrence. That's 10% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lawrence

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

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Lawrence: 6.8 times more than the Massachusetts average (3.0% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lawrence, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lawrence 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	Taxi	Other	Walked	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	87.7%	0.9%	3.2%	3.4%	0.8%	3.7%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	88.0%	0.8%	3.4%	3.4%	0.8%	3.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	87.7%	0.9%	3.2%	3.1%	1.0%	4.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	86.0%	1.2%	3.4%	4.2%	1.0%	4.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	85.7%	1.6%	3.8%	3.7%	1.3%	3.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	84.3%	2.3%	4.0%	3.8%	1.1%	4.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	82.5%	2.8%	4.4%	3.7%	1.6%	4.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	81.4%	2.9%	4.5%	4.4%	2.0%	4.4%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	81.7%	3.1%	4.5%	3.4%	2.1%	4.9%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	82.1%	2.9%	4.2%	3.1%	2.2%	5.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2019	84.2%	2.0%	4.1%	2.5%	2.4%	4.4%	0.3%	0.0%
2020	85.9%	2.4%	3.7%	2.5%	1.8%	3.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	84.6%	3.3%	3.2%	2.6%	1.8%	4.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	82.6%	4.4%	3.4%	2.9%	2.7%	3.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2023	80.7%	5.8%	3.6%	3.3%	3.2%	3.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	80.9%	6.8%	3.6%	3.0%	2.7%	2.6%	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 2010 at 88.0% and lowest in 2023 at 80.7%. Overall it fell from 87.7% in 2009 to 80.9% in 2024, down 6.8 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lawrence: its share of workers rose from 0.9% in 2009 to 6.8% in 2024, up 5.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.7% to 2.6% of workers (down 1.1 percentage points).

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

Taking a taxi peaked at 4.4% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 3.0%.

Commute Start Times in Lawrence

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lawrence?

The bars show when commuters in Lawrence 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		6.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		8.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		6.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lawrence is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Massachusetts. Early starts are more common than in Massachusetts: 20.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Massachusetts: 38.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.8%) 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 Lawrence, 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 Lawrence 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 Lawrence 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	Lawrence	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:25 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:31 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:33 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:34 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:36 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:31 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lawrence were on the road by 7:28 AM, 2 minutes later than in 2009 (7:26 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Lawrence now leave 9 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Lawrence has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Lawrence's commute time compare?

Metric	Lawrence	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.8%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	2.6%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.6%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lawrence is 20.1 minutes, shorter than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

3.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 2.6% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lawrence, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Lawrence, MA is the 2nd largest of the 5 cities compared here, 88,771 residents against a local median of 60,550. Where Lawrence, MA breaks from the cities next to it is work from home, sitting 45% below the local median of 12.4% at 6.8%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 20.1 min against a local median of 24.6 min, 18% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 18% below the local median it puts Lawrence, MA at the better end of the local range. The cities themselves spread 9.1% on work from home, so Lawrence, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Lawrence, MA has the 5th highest work from home of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lawrence, MA	88,771	20.1 min #1/5	6.8% #5/5	7:28 AM #2/5
Methuen, MA	53,422	22.8 min	12.2%	7:26 AM
Haverhill, MA	67,679	23.2 min	12.5%	7:46 AM
Wilmington, MA	23,238	26.0 min	19.7%	7:33 AM
Lowell, MA	118,320	26.3 min	10.6%	7:43 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 167 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,187 at a typical national wage. That's 21% less than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Lawrence, Massachusetts?

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