Easy ways to figure out your commute time in any city: Video
Traffic… ugh! Depending on where you live, it’s unavoidable. The slow-moving gridlock of vehicles can be experienced while driving in town, on interstates and on many of the roads in between. If you live in a big city or have lived in the same area for a while, many commuting-related woes come as no surprise. However, if you’re venturing somewhere new, it can be tricky trying to find a place within your ideal commute time when you are unfamiliar with the area and local traffic flows.
Watch this video for easy ways to help you calculate your commute time in a new place.
Average commute time to work
The pandemic changed the way many people work and it resulted in an uptick in people working remotely or from home.
But the people still commuting into the office spent an average of 26.8 minutes commuting, one way, in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This is a slight increase from 2021’s average time of 25.6 minutes.
Calculate your commute time
We're fortunate to live in the age of the internet, which means there are a lot of nifty solutions to many of our problems somewhere online. Like this one: a commute time calculator. Websites like CommuteTimeMap let you put in the city, your desired travel time and your preferred mode of transportation, and then it creates a map showing you the parts of town that fall within those parameters.
You can also put multiple points on the map, such as your workplace, your spouse’s workplace and your children’s school, to find areas that overlap or the whole area of coverage.
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Travel time calculator
However, these commuter maps might not take traffic into consideration. So being prepared for traffic or roadwork and planning ahead is key.
Many navigation apps, like Google Maps and Apple Maps, have the ability to set an “arrival time” and will tell you when to leave so you can arrive on time. However, the travel time can vary drastically depending on where you live and time of day. For example, an estimated journey to any one destination may range from 45 minutes to over two hours depending on local variables.
If you want to know about roadwork happening around you or on your route, check out your state’s Department of Transportation website. It’ll show you a variety of traffic disruptions, like closures, construction or special events. The interactive maps will also have icons you can click on to find out more information, like when the roadwork is supposed to wrap up. You can also tune into live traffic cameras to check out road conditions for yourself.