Medford Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:13 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Medford?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:13 PM

Commute Time Burden in Medford: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Medford spend about 52 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 218 hours, about 9.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 9% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 2.5 minutes.

Medford holds about 0.1% of New York's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Medford would save about 87 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,702 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)
Medford	26.2 min	52.3 min	218 hrs/yr	$6,756	2,025
New York	28.7 min	57.4 min	239 hrs/yr	$7,414	1,586
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.

Medford Commute Map

On average, it takes 26.2 minutes to get to work in Medford. That's 17% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Medford

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Medford: 12.9 times more than the New York average (1.0% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 50% more common in Medford than the New York average (82.4% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in Medford: 5.9 times less than the New York average (0.9% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Medford: 3.1 times less than the New York average (6.9% vs 21.7%).

Biking is essentially absent in Medford, versus 0.8% in New York.

Few people walk or bike to work in Medford: just 0.9%, 6.8 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Medford, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Medford 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	Motorcycle	Walked	Other	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.5%	1.6%	4.6%	0.0%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	91.0%	2.2%	5.4%	0.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	92.2%	2.4%	4.1%	0.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	92.3%	2.0%	4.2%	0.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	92.6%	2.4%	4.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	92.9%	2.8%	3.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	92.1%	3.2%	4.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	90.3%	3.9%	5.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	91.2%	3.7%	4.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	90.5%	3.7%	4.7%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	91.1%	3.5%	4.4%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	88.3%	4.7%	6.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	89.1%	5.7%	4.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	88.1%	5.8%	5.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	84.7%	8.5%	6.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	82.4%	8.0%	6.9%	1.0%	0.9%	0.4%	0.3%	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 92.9%. Overall it fell from 92.5% in 2009 to 82.4% in 2024, down 10.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Medford: its share of workers rose from 1.6% in 2009 to 8.0% in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

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 Medford

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Medford?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		7.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.9%

Medford New York Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Medford is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 11.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.1% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 16.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New York: 41.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.9%) 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 Medford, 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 Medford 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 Medford next to New York 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	Medford	New York	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:39 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:30 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:25 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Medford were on the road by 7:31 AM, 14 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:46 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Medford now leave 7 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 Medford has moved 5 minutes earlier.

How does Medford's commute time compare?

Metric	Medford	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	26.2 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.0%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	6.9%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Medford is 26.2 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

6.9% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Medford, NY Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Medford, NY compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Medford, NY	24,794	26.2 min #2/2	8.0% #2/2	7:31 AM #1/2
East Patchogue, NY	21,678	25.2 min	8.1%	7:38 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Medford, New York.

Is living in Medford, New York good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 218 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,756 at a typical national wage. That's 9% less than the typical New York commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Medford, New York?

Traffic peaks between 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM in Medford, New York. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Medford, New York?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 6.9% of commuters use it versus 21.7% in New York, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.