Reading Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Reading, 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 many minutes is the average drive to work in Reading?

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

Commute Time Burden in Reading: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Reading spend about 56 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 234 hours, about 9.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 2.5 minutes.

Reading holds about 0.4% of Massachusetts's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Reading would save about 94 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,899 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)
Reading	28.1 min	56.1 min	234 hrs/yr	$7,246	3,451
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.

Reading Commute Map

On average, it takes 28.1 minutes to get to work in Reading. That's 25% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 30.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Reading

Walking is unusually rare in Reading: 3.9 times less than the Massachusetts average (1.1% vs 4.1%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Reading: 459137.7 times less than the Massachusetts average (0.0% vs 0.4%).

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

Few people walk or bike to work in Reading: just 1.1%, 4.7 times below the Massachusetts average of 4.9%.

Commute Mode Trends in Reading, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Reading 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	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	86.7%	4.4%	6.6%	1.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	87.4%	4.3%	6.4%	1.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	87.0%	4.4%	6.8%	1.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	86.6%	4.2%	6.8%	1.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2013	86.9%	3.9%	6.5%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.6%
2014	87.9%	3.6%	5.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%
2015	86.7%	3.3%	7.2%	1.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2016	83.6%	5.2%	8.5%	1.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2017	83.1%	5.5%	9.2%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	81.2%	6.1%	10.0%	1.3%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	80.1%	6.7%	10.7%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	75.0%	13.5%	9.4%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	72.1%	19.4%	6.8%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	70.3%	22.2%	5.6%	1.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	65.9%	27.7%	5.1%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	63.9%	30.2%	4.5%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%	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 2014 at 87.9%. Overall it fell from 86.7% in 2009 to 63.9% in 2024, down 22.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 10 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Reading: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 30.2% in 2024, up 25.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 23.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.6% to 4.5% of workers (down 2.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Reading

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Reading?

The bars show when commuters in Reading 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		4.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		17.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		8.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Reading is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 17.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.7% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 9.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Massachusetts: 56.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.7%) 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 Reading, 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 Reading 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 Reading 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	Reading	Massachusetts	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:41 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:43 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:39 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:40 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:40 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:43 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:41 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Reading were on the road by 7:41 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Reading now leave 3 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Reading's commute time compare?

Metric	Reading	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.1 min	25.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 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	30.2%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	4.5%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Reading is 28.1 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

4.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Reading, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Reading, MA is typical in size for this group, 25,603 residents against a local median of 25,536, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. The measure that sets Reading, MA apart most is work from home: 30.2%, 36% above the local median of 22.2%.

The cities themselves spread 8.6% on work from home, so Reading, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Reading, MA has the highest work from home of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Reading, MA	25,603	28.1 min #4/5	30.2% #1/5	7:41 AM #3/5
Wakefield, MA	27,739	30.4 min	24.6%	7:33 AM
Stoneham, MA	23,334	25.4 min	24.6%	7:49 AM
Wilmington, MA	23,238	26.0 min	19.7%	7:33 AM
Woburn, MA	41,946	22.3 min	16.0%	7:43 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Reading, Massachusetts.

Is living in Reading, Massachusetts good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 234 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,246 at a typical national wage. That's 10% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Reading, Massachusetts?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Reading, 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 much time do residents in Reading, Massachusetts save by working from home?

About 30.2% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Reading would save about 94 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,899 at the same national wage assumption used above.