Methuen Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Methuen, 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 Methuen longer than the national average?

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

Commute Time Burden in Methuen: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Methuen spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 190 hours, about 7.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 11% less time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 2.7 minutes.

Methuen holds about 0.8% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Methuen would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,359 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)
Methuen	22.8 min	45.7 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,898	2,232
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.

Methuen Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.8 minutes to get to work in Methuen. That's 2% 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 12.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Methuen

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

Driving is 23% more common in Methuen than the Massachusetts average (83.8% vs 68.2%).

Walking is unusually rare in Methuen: 3.9 times less than the Massachusetts average (1.0% vs 4.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Methuen: 5.9 times less than the Massachusetts average (1.1% vs 6.5%).

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

Few people walk or bike to work in Methuen: just 1.0%, 4.7 times below the Massachusetts average of 4.9%.

Commute Mode Trends in Methuen, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Methuen 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	Other	Public Transportation	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.2%	2.4%	0.6%	0.7%	1.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	94.2%	2.4%	0.5%	1.0%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	94.0%	2.3%	0.6%	1.1%	1.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	94.9%	2.6%	0.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	94.6%	2.7%	0.6%	1.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	94.3%	2.8%	0.6%	1.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.9%	3.3%	0.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	93.4%	3.7%	0.8%	1.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	92.4%	3.6%	1.3%	1.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	92.6%	3.3%	1.3%	1.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.3%	3.2%	1.7%	1.4%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	89.8%	6.0%	1.2%	1.3%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	86.6%	8.8%	1.2%	1.3%	1.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	85.7%	10.0%	1.6%	1.1%	1.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	84.7%	10.8%	1.6%	1.1%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	83.8%	12.2%	1.2%	1.1%	1.0%	0.7%	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 2012 at 94.9%. Overall it fell from 94.2% in 2009 to 83.8% in 2024, down 10.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Methuen: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 12.2% in 2024, up 9.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Methuen

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Methuen?

The bars show when commuters in Methuen 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		5.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.6%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Methuen is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Massachusetts. Early starts are more common than in Massachusetts: 20.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Massachusetts: 43.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.2%) 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 Methuen, 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 Methuen 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 Methuen 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	Methuen	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:39 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:28 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:24 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Methuen were on the road by 7:26 AM, 16 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:41 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Methuen now leave 12 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 Methuen has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Methuen's commute time compare?

Metric	Methuen	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.8 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	12.2%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.1%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Methuen is 22.8 minutes, shorter than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

1.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Methuen, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Methuen, MA is the 4th largest of the 5 cities compared here, 53,422 residents against a local median of 78,225. Nothing separates Methuen, 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 one-way commute, 7% below the local median at 22.8 min against 24.6 min. Methuen, MA has the 2nd lowest one-way commute of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Methuen, MA	53,422	22.8 min #2/5	12.2% #3/5	7:26 AM #1/5
Lawrence, MA	88,771	20.1 min	6.8%	7:28 AM
Haverhill, MA	67,679	23.2 min	12.5%	7:46 AM
Lowell, MA	118,320	26.3 min	10.6%	7:43 AM
Wilmington, MA	23,238	26.0 min	19.7%	7:33 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Methuen, Massachusetts.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Methuen, Massachusetts?

Commuters here spend an estimated 190 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,898 at a typical national wage. That's 11% less than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Methuen, Massachusetts?

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

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Methuen, Massachusetts?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 1.1% of commuters use it versus 6.5% in Massachusetts, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.