Somerville Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Somerville, 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 long is the round-trip commute in Somerville?

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

Commute Time Burden in Somerville: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Somerville spend about 62 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 260 hours, about 10.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 22% more time on the road than the Massachusetts average of 25.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.7 minutes.

Somerville holds about 1.2% of Massachusetts's population but accounts for roughly 1.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Somerville would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,227 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)
Somerville	31.2 min	62.5 min	260 hrs/yr	$8,067	4,133
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.

Somerville Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.2 minutes to get to work in Somerville. That's 39% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 31.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Somerville

Driving is 49% less common in Somerville than the Massachusetts average (34.6% vs 68.2%).

Biking is unusually common in Somerville: 6.8 times more than the Massachusetts average (5.4% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Somerville, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Somerville 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	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	48.9%	3.0%	32.7%	9.8%	4.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	49.1%	3.0%	32.5%	9.8%	4.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	50.3%	3.2%	30.7%	10.0%	4.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	51.0%	2.9%	30.6%	10.1%	4.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	50.0%	3.1%	31.0%	10.2%	5.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	48.4%	3.9%	30.5%	11.3%	5.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	46.6%	3.8%	32.3%	11.3%	5.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	44.8%	4.0%	33.0%	11.5%	5.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	43.8%	4.4%	32.6%	11.5%	6.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	40.7%	4.8%	34.5%	11.7%	7.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%
2019	42.1%	4.5%	33.6%	11.3%	7.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%
2020	39.0%	12.7%	29.5%	10.7%	6.6%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%
2021	38.1%	18.8%	25.5%	9.6%	6.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%
2022	36.2%	24.8%	22.5%	9.0%	6.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	35.4%	29.0%	19.6%	8.4%	6.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	34.6%	31.4%	19.3%	8.5%	5.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 51.0%. Overall it fell from 48.9% in 2009 to 34.6% in 2024, down 14.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Somerville: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 31.4% in 2024, up 28.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 26.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 32.7% to 19.3% of workers (down 13.4 percentage points).

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

Walking peaked at 11.7% in 2018 and has since fallen back to 8.5%.

Commute Start Times in Somerville

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Somerville?

The bars show when commuters in Somerville 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		1.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		1.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		20.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		11.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		11.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Somerville is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 20.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.5% across Massachusetts. Early starts are less common than in Massachusetts: 4.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 11.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Massachusetts: 51.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.3%) 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 Somerville, 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 Somerville 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 Somerville 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	Somerville	Massachusetts	United States
2009	8:09 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:10 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:12 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:10 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:12 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:11 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:10 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:10 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:12 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:09 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:10 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:09 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:12 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:13 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:13 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Somerville were on the road by 8:13 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (8:09 AM). Across Massachusetts, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Somerville now leave 35 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 Somerville has moved 4 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Somerville in the whole series.

How does Somerville's commute time compare?

Metric	Somerville	Massachusetts	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.2 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	31.4%	18.6%	15.0%
Walked	8.5%	4.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	19.3%	6.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Somerville is 31.2 minutes, longer than the 25.6 minutes in Massachusetts.

19.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 6.5% in Massachusetts. 8.5% commute by walking, higher than the 4.1% in Massachusetts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Somerville, MA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Somerville, MA is the 2nd largest of the 6 cities compared here, 81,027 residents against a local median of 59,237. Where Somerville, MA breaks from the cities next to it is work from home, sitting 17% above the local median of 26.8% at 31.4%.

The cities themselves spread 24.0% on work from home, so Somerville, MA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Somerville, MA has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Somerville, MA	81,027	31.2 min #3/6	31.4% #2/6	8:13 AM #5/6
Cambridge, MA	117,266	23.7 min	30.7%	8:32 AM
Medford, MA	59,237	30.1 min	26.8%	8:02 AM
Everett, MA	49,993	32.8 min	10.5%	7:26 AM
Malden, MA	66,048	32.4 min	19.8%	8:03 AM
Arlington, MA	46,270	31.5 min	34.5%	8:07 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Somerville, Massachusetts.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 260 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,067 at a typical national wage. That's 22% more than the typical Massachusetts commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Somerville, 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 Somerville, Massachusetts a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 31.4% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Somerville would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,227 at the same national wage assumption used above.