Flagstaff Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 7:45 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Flagstaff?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:45 PM

Commute Time Burden in Flagstaff: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Flagstaff spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 114 hours, about 4.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 39% less time on the road than the Arizona average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 8.8 minutes.

Flagstaff holds about 1.0% of Arizona's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Flagstaff would save about 46 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,411 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)
Flagstaff	13.7 min	27.3 min	114 hrs/yr	$3,527	2,344
Arizona	22.4 min	44.9 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,798	1,948
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.

Flagstaff Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.7 minutes to get to work in Flagstaff. That's 39% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Flagstaff

Walking is unusually common in Flagstaff: 5.2 times more than the Arizona average (8.5% vs 1.7%).

Biking is unusually common in Flagstaff: 4.9 times more than the Arizona average (2.4% vs 0.5%).

Flagstaff stands out for active commuting: 10.9% of workers walk or bike to work, 5.1 times the Arizona average of 2.1%.

Commute Mode Trends in Flagstaff, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Flagstaff 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	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	80.9%	4.5%	7.2%	4.7%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.4%
2010	80.4%	5.2%	7.3%	4.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	77.4%	5.2%	9.5%	4.9%	1.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%
2012	76.7%	5.1%	10.3%	4.8%	2.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2013	77.4%	4.8%	9.6%	4.4%	2.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	76.5%	4.6%	10.2%	4.9%	3.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	75.5%	4.2%	11.3%	4.6%	2.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%
2016	76.7%	4.1%	10.6%	4.2%	2.4%	1.2%	0.5%	0.2%
2017	78.2%	3.7%	10.8%	3.6%	2.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%
2018	77.3%	3.6%	12.0%	3.5%	1.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%
2019	77.3%	4.7%	11.8%	3.1%	1.8%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%
2020	77.0%	7.1%	10.7%	2.5%	1.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%
2021	75.6%	8.6%	10.1%	2.4%	1.9%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	74.7%	10.2%	9.1%	2.5%	2.0%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2023	73.2%	11.8%	8.9%	2.4%	2.5%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	72.3%	13.2%	8.5%	2.4%	2.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 80.9% in 2009 to 72.3% in 2024, down 8.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Flagstaff: its share of workers rose from 4.5% in 2009 to 13.2% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 4.7% to 2.4% of workers (down 2.3 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 12.0% in 2018 and has since fallen back to 8.5%.

Commute Start Times in Flagstaff

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Flagstaff?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		8.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.7%

Flagstaff Arizona Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Flagstaff is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.1% across Arizona. Early starts are less common than in Arizona: 11.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 20.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Arizona: 45.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 42.6% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (33.4%) 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 Flagstaff, 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 Flagstaff 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 Flagstaff next to Arizona 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	Flagstaff	Arizona	United States
2009	7:56 AM	7:23 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:00 AM	7:25 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:06 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:09 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:09 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:10 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:08 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:06 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:05 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:08 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:08 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:11 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:09 AM	7:25 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:04 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:04 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:06 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Flagstaff were on the road by 8:06 AM, 11 minutes later than in 2009 (7:56 AM). The shift is sharper than across Arizona, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Flagstaff now leave 29 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Flagstaff's commute time compare?

Metric	Flagstaff	Arizona	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.7 min	22.4 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.2%	18.4%	15.0%
Walked	8.5%	1.7%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.3%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Flagstaff is 13.7 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Arizona.

2.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.0% in Arizona. 8.5% commute by walking, higher than the 1.7% in Arizona.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Flagstaff, Arizona.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Flagstaff, Arizona?

Commuters here spend an estimated 114 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,527 at a typical national wage. That's 39% less than the typical Arizona commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Flagstaff, Arizona?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Flagstaff, Arizona. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.