Birmingham Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 6:06 PM

Is the commute in Birmingham longer than the national average?

Map AI 10/21/26, 6:06 PM

Commute Time Burden in Birmingham: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Birmingham spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 172 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.5 minutes.

Birmingham holds about 4.1% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 3.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Birmingham would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,130 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)
Birmingham	20.6 min	41.2 min	172 hrs/yr	$5,325	2,854
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
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.

Birmingham Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.6 minutes to get to work in Birmingham. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Birmingham

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Birmingham: 8.6 times less than the Alabama average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually common in Birmingham: 3.5 times more than the Alabama average (1.0% vs 0.3%).

Biking is unusually common in Birmingham: 3.9 times more than the Alabama average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Birmingham, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Birmingham 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	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	92.4%	1.9%	2.4%	0.5%	2.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	92.9%	1.8%	2.2%	0.5%	2.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	92.9%	1.9%	2.3%	0.4%	2.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	92.9%	2.0%	2.3%	0.4%	2.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	92.6%	2.2%	2.3%	0.4%	2.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	92.3%	2.3%	2.2%	0.6%	2.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2015	91.9%	2.2%	2.5%	0.8%	2.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	92.0%	2.2%	2.5%	0.8%	2.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	91.3%	2.3%	2.7%	0.9%	2.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	90.9%	2.5%	2.8%	1.0%	2.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2019	90.8%	2.5%	2.6%	1.2%	2.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%
2020	88.9%	4.4%	2.9%	1.3%	1.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	86.8%	6.7%	2.9%	1.3%	1.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	85.4%	8.0%	3.0%	1.5%	1.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	84.1%	9.0%	3.3%	1.8%	1.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2024	83.2%	10.4%	3.2%	1.5%	1.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 92.9%. Overall it fell from 92.4% in 2009 to 83.2% in 2024, down 9.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Birmingham: its share of workers rose from 1.9% in 2009 to 10.4% in 2024, up 8.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.5% to 1.0% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Birmingham

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Birmingham?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.0%

Birmingham Alabama Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Birmingham is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are less common than in Alabama: 13.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Alabama's: 47.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.4%) 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 Birmingham, 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham next to Alabama 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	Birmingham	Alabama	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:34 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:34 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:39 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:47 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:48 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:46 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:42 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Birmingham were on the road by 7:42 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Birmingham now leave 4 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Birmingham's commute time compare?

Metric	Birmingham	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.6 min	22.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.4%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	3.2%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.0%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Birmingham is 20.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

1.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Alabama. 3.2% commute by walking, higher than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Birmingham, AL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Birmingham, AL is the largest of the 4 cities compared here, 207,255 residents against a local median of 27,106. The measure that sets Birmingham, AL apart most is work from home: 10.4%, 36% below the local median of 16.2%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 20.6 min against a local median of 17.3 min, 19% above it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 19% above the local median it puts Birmingham, AL at the weaker end of the local range. The cities themselves spread 3.4% on work from home, so Birmingham, AL sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Birmingham, AL has the 4th highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Birmingham, AL	207,255	20.6 min #4/4	10.4% #4/4	7:42 AM #1/4
Homewood, AL	27,106	16.5 min	13.7%	7:58 AM
Mountain Brook, AL	23,287	17.3 min	16.2%	7:57 AM
Vestavia Hills, AL	32,245	18.4 min	17.1%	7:51 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Birmingham, Alabama.

Is commuting expensive in Birmingham, Alabama?

Commuters here spend an estimated 172 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,325 at a typical national wage. That's 7% less than the typical Alabama commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Birmingham, Alabama?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Birmingham, Alabama. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Birmingham, Alabama?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 1.0% of commuters use it versus 0.3% in Alabama, making it a realistic option for many workers.