Map My Commute Range

January 14, 2010 11:42 AM

Is there a way to create a map that shows an area within a certain number of driving-minutes from a location?

I'm looking to buy a house and don't want to commute too far to work. Is thetre a website or map mashup where I can enter an address and find a field that marks the limit of places within, say, a 45 minute drive from that address?

I haven't been able to find anything online.

posted by billtron to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total)

Well, drive time in my Metro area varies wildly based on time of day and weather. But, if you were interested in distance, you could use a Great Circle Mapper.
posted by soelo at 12:11 PM on January 14, 2010

Best answer: Here you go, although you'll have to click on the map rather than enter an address.
posted by desjardins at 12:13 PM on January 14, 2010

Microsoft Streets and Trips does this too, although obviously it's not free (maybe a trial version exists?).
posted by desjardins at 12:14 PM on January 14, 2010

some other related questions 1 - 2 - 3
posted by desjardins at 12:18 PM on January 14, 2010

Streets and Trips 2010 can do this, and there is a 60day free trial available here.

Place a marker on your center address, then do Tools, Create Drivetime Zone...
posted by Diddly at 1:42 PM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Try this one or this one. All on driving distance, though, so you'll have to assume and derive time and speed yourself.
posted by dhartung at 2:50 PM on January 14, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. Because I live in Vermont, where road speed and straightness vary drastically, a radius map doesn't quite cut it. Ten miles away as the crow flies could be ten minutes less in commute time.

Desjardins, your third link is the one I wanted but was not able to find through a search. The conclusion there was that computing power was not up to par yet. Thanks for the links, though!
posted by billtron at 3:15 PM on January 14, 2010

There exists software that does what you want. Police, Fire, and EMS departments often use things like this to create districts and figure out how to minimize response times.

However, it is one of those things that ends up being rather expensive. It's not necessarily a hard thing to do, but it can take a large amount of computing power to get it all together. You also need accurate road-speed data, which is probably the hardest to get, and unlikely to be readily available in a free map service.
posted by that girl at 5:30 PM on January 14, 2010

If you have to, you could just drag around things in Google Maps -- ask for directions from where you work to some random point where you might live, then drag around the where-you-live end of the route and watch how the distances change. If you want to you can make a map where you mark each of the points at, say, 45 minutes from work; you'll get some sort-of-circular region around work that is where you want to live.

I've been experimenting with this for another region with drastically varying road quality that I'm thinking of moving to. I actually wrote a similar question and the search feature found yours.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:42 PM on February 11, 2010