Commuting by MBTA
Every commute figure you find for Massachusetts points at downtown Boston. Most people do not work there. These pages measure the journey to the places they do work, from the MBTA’s own timetable.
Timetable-based, not distance-modeled. Calculated from published MBTA schedules: station-to-station journey time including transfers, for services arriving between 07:00 and 09:30 on a normal weekday. It excludes reaching your origin station and the walk at the far end, and it covers only the 81 of our 223 towns that have a station. Driving is not included.
| Destination | Towns within 45 min | …with strong schools | Closest town |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kendall Square | 26 | 9 | Boston, 2 min |
| Longwood Medical Area | 10 | 3 | Newton, 14 min |
| the Seaport | 34 | 14 | Cambridge, 10 min |
| Back Bay | 34 | 14 | Cambridge, 12 min |
| Downtown Boston | 40 | 15 | Somerville, 6 min |
Where the network works, and where it does not
The spread in that table is the point. Downtown Boston is reachable within 45 minutes from 40 towns. Longwood Medical Area manages 10 — from the same rail network, for a job centre of comparable size.
That gap is not about distance. It is about whether the network was built to deliver people there, and it should change where you look for a house far more than it usually does.
Computed from the MBTA GTFS feed. Prices, tax bills and school tiers are ours — see the methodology. Data last reviewed .
