Roswell Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 2:18 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Roswell?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:18 PM

Commute Time Burden in Roswell: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Roswell spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 111 hours, about 4.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 29% less time on the road than the New Mexico average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 5.5 minutes.

Roswell holds about 1.4% of New Mexico's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Roswell would save about 44 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,374 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)
Roswell	13.3 min	26.6 min	111 hrs/yr	$3,436	1,417
New Mexico	18.8 min	37.7 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,866	619
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.

Roswell Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.3 minutes to get to work in Roswell. That's 41% shorter 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 5.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Roswell

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Roswell: 3.6 times more than the New Mexico average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Roswell: 3.6 times less than the New Mexico average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

Commute Mode Trends in Roswell, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Roswell 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	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	93.8%	2.6%	2.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	93.9%	2.3%	2.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	93.2%	3.1%	2.0%	0.3%	0.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	93.3%	2.3%	2.1%	0.2%	0.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%
2013	92.4%	2.9%	2.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2014	91.8%	3.2%	2.0%	0.7%	1.0%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%
2015	92.0%	2.8%	2.4%	0.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%
2016	91.5%	3.0%	2.7%	0.5%	1.0%	0.1%	1.2%	0.0%
2017	91.9%	3.9%	2.3%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%
2018	93.5%	3.5%	1.4%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.8%	0.0%
2019	93.4%	2.8%	2.2%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2020	93.6%	3.0%	1.4%	0.1%	0.5%	0.3%	1.0%	0.0%
2021	92.9%	3.4%	1.2%	0.5%	0.9%	0.3%	0.5%	0.4%
2022	93.0%	3.2%	1.4%	0.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%
2023	91.3%	4.8%	2.1%	0.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	90.5%	5.5%	1.4%	1.0%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 93.9%. Overall it fell from 93.8% in 2009 to 90.5% in 2024, down 3.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Roswell: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 5.5% in 2024, up 2.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.4% to 1.4% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Biking overtook public transit to become the 4th most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Roswell

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Roswell?

The bars show when commuters in Roswell 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 Mexico for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		5.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		3.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.9%

Roswell New Mexico Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Roswell is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across New Mexico. Early starts are about as common as in New Mexico: 12.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Mexico: 46.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.0%) 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 Roswell, 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 Roswell 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 Roswell next to New Mexico 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	Roswell	New Mexico	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Roswell were on the road by 7:49 AM, 8 minutes later than in 2009 (7:42 AM). That goes against the trend across New Mexico, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Roswell now leave 12 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 Roswell has moved 8 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Roswell in the whole series.

How does Roswell's commute time compare?

Metric	Roswell	New Mexico	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.3 min	18.8 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.5%	12.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Roswell is 13.3 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in New Mexico.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in New Mexico. 1.4% commute by walking, lower than the 1.9% in New Mexico.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Roswell, New Mexico.

Is commuting expensive in Roswell, New Mexico?

Commuters here spend an estimated 111 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,436 at a typical national wage. That's 29% less than the typical New Mexico commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Roswell, New Mexico?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Roswell, New Mexico. 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.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Roswell, New Mexico?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.6% in New Mexico, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.