Think Traffic In Burlington Is Getting Worse? So Does U.S. Census

BURLINGTON, MA -- Celia Carmichael leaves her house in Burlington every morning at 6 am for work in Waltham. She doesn't need to be in that early, but leaving at six means her drive -- usually -- only takes 15 minutes.

"I'd rather have a 15 minute commute and be at the office that early than waste my time in an hour of traffic," Carmichael said. "I don't think it's getting better anytime soon."

According to the Census bureau Burlington residents had commute times to work of 28.5 minutes in 2016, unchanged from 2015 and but up from 26.8 minutes in 2011. That 1 minute, 42 seconds on your drive to work might not seem like much, but consider two trips a day, five work days per week and 50 work weeks in a year. That 1:42 means Burlington commuters are spending an extra 850 minutes -- or 14.2 hours -- per year in traffic than they were five years ago.

And Burlington residents aren't alone when it comes to spending time in the car. In Massachusetts, average commute times were 29 minutes in 2016, up 2.83% from 2015 and 4.88% since 2010. Nationally, the average commute time was 26.6 minutes in 2016, up from 25.9 minutes in 2015 and 25.2 minutes in 2010.

Earlier this fall, Burlington Patch asked residents about their commutes, and the response was overwhelmingly similar to what Carmichael had to tell us about her husband's drive to work: commutes that used to take 15 minutes now take more than an hour, and people are increasingly turning to back roads and heading to work at odd hours to avoid traffic.

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Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).