Melrose Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Melrose, 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, 4:02 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Melrose?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:02 PM

Commute Time Burden in Melrose: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Melrose spend about 66 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 274 hours, about 11.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 29% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 7.3 minutes.

Melrose holds about 0.4% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Melrose would save about 110 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,397 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)
Melrose	32.9 min	65.7 min	274 hrs/yr	$8,492	2,970
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.

Melrose Commute Map

On average, it takes 32.9 minutes to get to work in Melrose. That's 47% longer 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 29.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Melrose

Driving is 21% less common in Melrose than the Massachusetts average (54.0% vs 68.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Melrose, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Melrose 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	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	76.1%	3.6%	16.2%	3.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	75.2%	3.7%	16.2%	4.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	73.8%	3.5%	18.6%	3.1%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	71.8%	4.0%	20.7%	2.1%	0.2%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	72.7%	4.4%	19.9%	2.0%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	74.1%	3.5%	18.8%	2.3%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	73.3%	3.8%	19.7%	1.9%	0.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	72.0%	4.4%	20.0%	2.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	69.5%	4.7%	21.8%	3.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	68.1%	4.1%	22.9%	3.8%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	65.2%	5.6%	25.4%	2.9%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	62.2%	10.8%	23.2%	2.7%	0.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	59.4%	18.2%	19.5%	1.7%	0.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	58.2%	20.6%	18.2%	1.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	55.1%	25.6%	15.7%	1.6%	1.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2024	54.0%	29.6%	12.4%	1.8%	1.3%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 76.1% in 2009 to 54.0% in 2024, down 22.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 10 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Melrose: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 29.6% in 2024, up 26.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 24.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 16.2% to 12.4% of workers (down 3.8 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in Melrose

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Melrose?

The bars show when commuters in Melrose 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		3.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		18.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		16.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		2.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Melrose is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 18.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 9.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Massachusetts: 60.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.6%) 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 Melrose, 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 Melrose 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 Melrose 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	Melrose	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:50 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:44 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:31 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Melrose were on the road by 7:44 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:50 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Melrose now leave 7 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 Melrose has moved 7 minutes later.

How does Melrose's commute time compare?

Metric	Melrose	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	32.9 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	29.6%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	12.4%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Melrose is 32.9 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

12.4% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Melrose, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Melrose, MA is typical in size for this group, 29,648 residents against a local median of 28,773, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Where Melrose, MA breaks from the cities next to it is work from home, sitting 49% above the local median of 19.8% at 29.6%.

The cities themselves spread 14.1% on work from home, so Melrose, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Melrose, MA has the highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Melrose, MA	29,648	32.9 min #6/6	29.6% #1/6	7:44 AM #3/6
Malden, MA	66,048	32.4 min	19.8%	8:03 AM
Stoneham, MA	23,334	25.4 min	24.6%	7:49 AM
Saugus, MA	28,773	28.7 min	14.3%	7:45 AM
Wakefield, MA	27,739	30.4 min	24.6%	7:33 AM
Everett, MA	49,993	32.8 min	10.5%	7:26 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Melrose, Massachusetts.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 274 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,492 at a typical national wage. That's 29% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Melrose, Massachusetts?

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

How much time do residents in Melrose, Massachusetts save by working from home?

About 29.6% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Melrose would save about 110 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,397 at the same national wage assumption used above.