Norfolk County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Norfolk County, 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, 8:39 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Norfolk County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:39 PM

Commute Time Burden in Norfolk County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Norfolk County spend about 62 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 258 hours, about 10.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.4 minutes.

Norfolk County holds about 10.4% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 12.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Norfolk County would save about 103 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,200 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)
Norfolk County	31.0 min	61.9 min	258 hrs/yr	$8,001	3,256
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.

Commute Time Map: Massachusetts Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Massachusetts

Nantucket County (12.8 min)
Dukes County (15.4 min)
Berkshire County (16.8 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Massachusetts

Norfolk County (31.0 min)
Suffolk County (30.4 min)
Middlesex County (28.4 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Norfolk County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 31.0 minutes to get to work in Norfolk County. That's 38% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slowest county in Massachusetts

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 22.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Norfolk County

Commute Mode Trends in Norfolk County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Norfolk County 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	78.4%	3.9%	12.9%	3.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	78.1%	4.1%	13.2%	3.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	78.0%	4.4%	13.0%	3.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	78.0%	4.4%	12.9%	3.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	78.1%	4.5%	12.7%	3.5%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	77.7%	4.5%	13.1%	3.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	77.1%	4.5%	13.6%	3.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	76.4%	4.6%	14.0%	3.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	75.6%	4.9%	14.4%	3.6%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	75.0%	5.2%	14.4%	3.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	74.5%	5.6%	14.6%	3.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	71.3%	9.9%	13.5%	3.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%
2021	68.4%	14.4%	11.8%	3.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	66.2%	17.8%	10.7%	3.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	64.6%	20.6%	9.5%	3.2%	0.9%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%
2024	63.4%	22.8%	8.7%	3.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 78.4% in 2009 to 63.4% in 2024, down 15.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 11 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Norfolk County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 22.8% in 2024, up 18.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 17.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 12.9% to 8.7% of workers (down 4.2 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in Norfolk County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Norfolk County?

The bars show when commuters in Norfolk County 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		3.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Norfolk County is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.5% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 9.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush looks much like Massachusetts's: 50.9% 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 Norfolk County, 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 Norfolk County 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 Norfolk County 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	Norfolk County	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:48 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:48 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:48 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:48 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:48 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:46 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:45 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:45 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:47 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:48 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:49 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:51 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Norfolk County were on the road by 7:51 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (7:46 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Norfolk County now leave 13 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 Norfolk County has moved 7 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Norfolk County in the whole series.

How does Norfolk County's commute time compare?

Metric	Norfolk County	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.0 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	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.8%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	3.1%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	8.7%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Norfolk County is 31.0 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

8.7% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 3.1% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Norfolk County, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Norfolk County, MA is the 3rd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 729,949 residents against a local median of 582,104. The measure that sets Norfolk County, MA apart most is work from home: 22.8%, 41% above the local median of 16.2%.

The counties themselves spread 13.5% on work from home, so Norfolk County, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Norfolk County, MA has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Norfolk County, MA	729,949	31.0 min #6/6	22.8% #2/6	7:51 AM #4/6
Suffolk County, MA	779,263	30.4 min	19.9%	8:03 AM
Middlesex County, MA	1,636,094	28.4 min	24.7%	7:57 AM
Bristol County, MA	582,104	23.2 min	11.1%	7:35 AM
Bristol County, RI	50,443	23.2 min	15.6%	7:48 AM
Plymouth County, MA	534,586	28.0 min	16.2%	7:31 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Norfolk County, Massachusetts.

Is commuting expensive in Norfolk County, Massachusetts?

Commuters here spend an estimated 258 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,001 at a typical national wage. That's 21% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Norfolk County, Massachusetts?

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

How do commute times compare across counties in Massachusetts?

Among counties in Massachusetts, the shortest average commutes are in Nantucket County (12.8 min), Dukes County (15.4 min), Berkshire County (16.8 min). The longest are in Norfolk County (31.0 min), Suffolk County (30.4 min), Middlesex County (28.4 min).