Fairbanks Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:11 PM

Is the commute in Fairbanks longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:11 PM

Commute Time Burden in Fairbanks: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fairbanks spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 111 hours, about 4.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 17% less time on the road than the Alaska average of 16.1 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Fairbanks holds about 2.8% of Alaska's population but accounts for roughly 2.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fairbanks would save about 44 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,375 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)
Fairbanks	13.3 min	26.6 min	111 hrs/yr	$3,438	1,233
Alaska	16.1 min	32.2 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,157	583
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.

Fairbanks Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.3 minutes to get to work in Fairbanks. That's 41% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fairbanks

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Fairbanks: 75055.3 times less than the Alaska average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Fairbanks, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fairbanks 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	86.0%	3.6%	5.7%	2.2%	0.8%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%
2010	85.3%	4.3%	4.6%	2.6%	0.9%	1.8%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	83.7%	5.1%	4.2%	2.7%	1.9%	1.8%	0.2%	0.3%
2012	85.3%	4.3%	3.6%	2.3%	1.8%	2.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	84.6%	3.4%	4.6%	2.6%	1.8%	2.4%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	86.3%	2.6%	4.1%	1.8%	2.3%	2.2%	0.5%	0.2%
2015	86.8%	2.6%	4.5%	1.7%	2.2%	1.7%	0.5%	0.0%
2016	87.9%	1.7%	5.3%	1.7%	1.4%	1.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	87.3%	1.6%	5.6%	1.6%	1.6%	1.4%	0.7%	0.2%
2018	88.1%	2.2%	4.5%	1.4%	1.0%	1.7%	0.9%	0.1%
2019	87.4%	2.5%	4.9%	1.5%	0.7%	1.7%	1.0%	0.2%
2020	87.5%	4.2%	4.8%	1.4%	0.3%	1.1%	0.5%	0.2%
2021	85.5%	5.3%	5.7%	1.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%
2022	85.3%	5.7%	4.8%	2.1%	0.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	83.3%	6.5%	5.6%	2.2%	1.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	82.7%	6.3%	6.2%	1.8%	1.4%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2018 at 88.1%. Overall it fell from 86.0% in 2009 to 82.7% in 2024, down 3.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fairbanks: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 6.3% in 2024, up 2.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking peaked at 2.4% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 1.0%.

Commute Start Times in Fairbanks

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fairbanks?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.6%
6:30-6:59 AM		5.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		18.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		6.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.5%

Fairbanks Alaska Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Fairbanks is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 18.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 17.1% across Alaska. Early starts are about as common as in Alaska: 14.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Alaska: 42.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.3% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (29.3%) 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 Fairbanks, 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 Fairbanks 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 Fairbanks next to Alaska 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	Fairbanks	Alaska	United States
2009	7:47 AM	7:47 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:50 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:52 AM	7:46 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:49 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:49 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:50 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:47 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:48 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:52 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:50 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:51 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:50 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:51 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fairbanks were on the road by 7:51 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:47 AM). That goes against the trend across Alaska, where the typical commuter now leaves 4 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Fairbanks now leave 13 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Fairbanks has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Fairbanks's commute time compare?

Metric	Fairbanks	Alaska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.3 min	16.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.3%	9.7%	15.0%
Walked	6.2%	7.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.8%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fairbanks is 13.3 minutes, shorter than the 16.1 minutes in Alaska.

1.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.0% in Alaska. 6.2% commute by walking, lower than the 7.2% in Alaska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Is living in Fairbanks, Alaska good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 111 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,438 at a typical national wage. That's 17% less than the typical Alaska commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Fairbanks, Alaska?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Fairbanks, Alaska. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.