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Nashua Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Nashua, New Hampshire: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:09 PM
Is the commute in Nashua longer than the national average?
Map AI 9/24/26, 4:09 PM

Commute Time Burden in Nashua: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Nashua spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 180 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% less time on the road than the New Hampshire average of 22.5 minutes each way, a difference of 0.9 minutes.

Nashua holds about 6.5% of New Hampshire's population but accounts for roughly 6.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Nashua would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,234 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)
Nashua 21.6 min 43.2 min 180 hrs/yr $5,585 2,835
New Hampshire 22.5 min 45.0 min 188 hrs/yr $5,813 1,232
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.

Nashua Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.6 minutes to get to work in Nashua. That's 4% shorter 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 17.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Nashua

  • Car: 78.3%
  • Worked at Home: 17.4%
  • Walked: 1.7%
  • Public Transportation: 1.3%
  • Other: 0.9%
  • Taxi: 0.4% unusually high
  • Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
  • Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Nashua, versus 0.1% in New Hampshire.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Nashua: 3.1 times more than the New Hampshire average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually rare in Nashua: 5.4 times less than the New Hampshire average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Nashua, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Nashua 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 Walked Public Transportation Other Taxi Motorcycle Bicycle
2009 91.1% 3.5% 2.4% 2.1% 0.5% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
2010 89.7% 4.7% 2.7% 2.1% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
2011 91.0% 4.3% 1.9% 2.1% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
2012 91.0% 4.0% 2.2% 2.1% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
2013 91.4% 3.8% 2.4% 1.7% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
2014 90.8% 4.2% 2.3% 1.8% 0.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.2%
2015 90.4% 4.5% 2.3% 1.8% 0.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.2%
2016 90.6% 4.3% 2.6% 1.5% 0.5% 0.0% 0.2% 0.2%
2017 89.8% 4.9% 2.4% 1.8% 0.6% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2%
2018 89.3% 5.6% 1.9% 2.1% 0.6% 0.1% 0.2% 0.1%
2019 89.0% 5.1% 2.2% 2.6% 0.8% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%
2020 87.9% 7.1% 2.0% 2.2% 0.7% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%
2021 85.3% 9.8% 2.0% 2.1% 0.6% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%
2022 83.2% 12.2% 1.8% 1.7% 0.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2%
2023 80.9% 15.0% 1.7% 1.3% 0.9% 0.2% 0.0% 0.1%
2024 78.3% 17.4% 1.7% 1.3% 0.9% 0.4% 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 2013 at 91.4%. Overall it fell from 91.1% in 2009 to 78.3% in 2024, down 12.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Nashua: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 17.4% in 2024, up 13.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.1% to 1.3% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Nashua

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Nashua?

The bars show when commuters in Nashua 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 New Hampshire for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM
5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM
6.6%
5:30-5:59 AM
6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM
8.3%
6:30-6:59 AM
9.6%
7:00-7:29 AM
13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM
10.2%
8:00-8:29 AM
9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM
6.2%
9:00-9:59 AM
7.3%
10:00-10:59 AM
2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM
2.8%
12:00-3:59 PM
7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM
4.4%

Nashua New Hampshire Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Nashua is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across New Hampshire. Early starts are more common than in New Hampshire: 18.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Hampshire: 42.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.5%) 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 Nashua, 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 Nashua 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 Nashua next to New Hampshire 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 Nashua New Hampshire United States
2009 7:44 AM 7:34 AM 7:37 AM
2010 7:41 AM 7:34 AM 7:38 AM
2011 7:43 AM 7:34 AM 7:38 AM
2012 7:43 AM 7:33 AM 7:38 AM
2013 7:44 AM 7:33 AM 7:39 AM
2014 7:44 AM 7:33 AM 7:39 AM
2015 7:42 AM 7:32 AM 7:38 AM
2016 7:40 AM 7:33 AM 7:38 AM
2017 7:38 AM 7:33 AM 7:38 AM
2018 7:39 AM 7:33 AM 7:37 AM
2019 7:39 AM 7:33 AM 7:37 AM
2020 7:37 AM 7:32 AM 7:37 AM
2021 7:37 AM 7:31 AM 7:37 AM
2022 7:34 AM 7:31 AM 7:37 AM
2023 7:30 AM 7:31 AM 7:38 AM
2024 7:30 AM 7:31 AM 7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Nashua were on the road by 7:30 AM, 14 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:44 AM). The shift is sharper than across New Hampshire, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Nashua now leave 8 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 Nashua has moved 9 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Nashua in the whole series.

How does Nashua's commute time compare?

Metric Nashua New Hampshire US Average
Avg. Commute Time 21.6 min 22.5 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 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home 17.4% 16.8% 15.0%
Walked 1.7% 2.3% 2.4%
Public Transit 1.3% 0.5% 3.2%

The average commute time in Nashua is 21.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.5 minutes in New Hampshire.

1.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.5% in New Hampshire. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in New Hampshire.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Nashua, New Hampshire.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Nashua, New Hampshire?

Commuters here spend an estimated 180 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,585 at a typical national wage. That's 4% less than the typical New Hampshire commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Nashua, New Hampshire?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Nashua, New Hampshire. 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.