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Sun City Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:35 PM
What does a typical morning commute look like in Sun City?
Map AI 9/24/26, 3:35 PM

Commute Time Burden in Sun City: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sun City spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 192 hours, about 8.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% more time on the road than the Arizona average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Sun City holds about 0.5% of Arizona's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sun City would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,387 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)
Sun City 23.1 min 46.2 min 192 hrs/yr $5,967 5,078
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.

Sun City Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.1 minutes to get to work in Sun City. That's 3% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sun City

  • Car: 76.4%
  • Worked at Home: 19.4%
  • Other: 3.0%
  • Walked: 0.6%
  • Motorcycle: 0.4%
  • Bicycle: 0.2%
  • Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
  • Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is essentially absent in Sun City, versus 1.0% in Arizona.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Sun City, versus 0.2% in Arizona.

Commute Mode Trends in Sun City, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sun City 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 Other Walked Motorcycle Bicycle Public Transportation Taxi
2009 90.9% 5.2% 1.6% 1.3% 0.0% 0.4% 0.6% 0.0%
2010 88.8% 5.6% 2.0% 1.6% 0.1% 1.3% 0.7% 0.0%
2011 88.7% 5.4% 2.0% 2.1% 0.1% 1.2% 0.6% 0.0%
2012 86.8% 6.0% 2.2% 2.2% 0.5% 1.7% 0.5% 0.0%
2013 85.5% 6.8% 2.2% 2.0% 0.7% 1.5% 1.2% 0.0%
2014 86.8% 7.1% 1.8% 1.7% 0.6% 1.2% 0.9% 0.0%
2015 86.9% 7.5% 2.2% 1.2% 0.7% 0.8% 0.7% 0.0%
2016 86.3% 8.5% 2.2% 0.8% 0.7% 0.9% 0.7% 0.0%
2017 86.2% 9.0% 1.7% 0.9% 0.4% 0.8% 0.9% 0.2%
2018 87.7% 8.0% 2.2% 0.7% 0.2% 0.8% 0.2% 0.2%
2019 86.6% 9.9% 2.1% 0.3% 0.2% 0.5% 0.2% 0.1%
2020 83.5% 12.4% 3.0% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1%
2021 82.5% 13.8% 2.5% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1%
2022 79.9% 16.3% 3.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0%
2023 75.5% 19.7% 3.8% 0.5% 0.3% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0%
2024 76.4% 19.4% 3.0% 0.6% 0.4% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2023 at 75.5%. Overall it fell from 90.9% in 2009 to 76.4% in 2024, down 14.5 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Sun City: its share of workers rose from 5.2% in 2009 to 19.4% in 2024, up 14.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.3% to 0.6% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Biking peaked at 1.7% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 0.2%.

Commute Start Times in Sun City

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sun City?

The bars show when commuters in Sun City 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
9.8%
5:00-5:29 AM
3.6%
5:30-5:59 AM
6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM
13.8%
6:30-6:59 AM
6.8%
7:00-7:29 AM
12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM
7.8%
8:00-8:29 AM
10.0%
8:30-8:59 AM
6.4%
9:00-9:59 AM
6.0%
10:00-10:59 AM
3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM
0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM
7.5%
4:00-11:59 PM
6.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Sun City is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 13.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 9.2% across Arizona. Early starts are about as common as in Arizona: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 20.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Arizona: 36.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 42.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.7%) 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 Sun City, 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 Sun City 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 Sun City 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 Sun City Arizona United States
2009 7:15 AM 7:23 AM 7:37 AM
2010 7:24 AM 7:25 AM 7:38 AM
2011 7:15 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM
2012 7:06 AM 7:27 AM 7:38 AM
2013 7:06 AM 7:27 AM 7:39 AM
2014 7:10 AM 7:27 AM 7:39 AM
2015 7:07 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM
2016 7:15 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM
2017 7:19 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM
2018 7:22 AM 7:26 AM 7:37 AM
2019 7:25 AM 7:26 AM 7:37 AM
2020 7:27 AM 7:26 AM 7:37 AM
2021 7:37 AM 7:25 AM 7:37 AM
2022 7:39 AM 7:26 AM 7:37 AM
2023 7:33 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM
2024 7:25 AM 7:26 AM 7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sun City were on the road by 7:25 AM, 10 minutes later than in 2009 (7:15 AM). The shift is sharper than across Arizona, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Sun City now leave 13 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Sun City's commute time compare?

Metric Sun City Arizona US Average
Avg. Commute Time 23.1 min 22.4 min 22.4 min
Departure Window 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home 19.4% 18.4% 15.0%
Walked 0.6% 1.7% 2.4%
Public Transit < 0.1% 1.0% 3.2%

The average commute time in Sun City is 23.1 minutes, longer than the 22.4 minutes in Arizona.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Arizona. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.7% in Arizona.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Sun City, AZ Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Sun City, AZ is typical in size for this group, 40,024 residents against a local median of 34,950, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Sun City, AZ's work from home, at 19.4%, runs 30% above the 14.9% typical of the cities around it.

The cities themselves spread 7.7% on work from home, so Sun City, AZ sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Sun City, AZ has the 2nd highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area Population One-way commute Work from home Typical departure
Sun City, AZ 40,024 23.1 min #2/4 19.4% #2/4 7:25 AM #3/4
El Mirage, AZ 34,950 28.0 min 14.9% 7:06 AM
Glendale, AZ 256,120 26.2 min 14.6% 7:19 AM
Sun City West, AZ 25,067 16.2 min 22.3% 7:42 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Sun City, Arizona.

Is commuting expensive in Sun City, Arizona?

Commuters here spend an estimated 192 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,967 at a typical national wage. That's 3% more than the typical Arizona commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Sun City, Arizona?

Traffic peaks between 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM in Sun City, Arizona. 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.

Do people use public transit in Sun City, Arizona?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.0% of commuters use it versus 1.0% in Arizona, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.