Burlingame Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:40 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Burlingame?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:40 PM

Commute Time Burden in Burlingame: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Burlingame spend about 57 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 239 hours, about 10.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 22% more time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 5.2 minutes.

Burlingame holds about 0.1% of California's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Burlingame would save about 96 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,967 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)
Burlingame	28.7 min	57.4 min	239 hrs/yr	$7,417	3,036
California	23.5 min	47.0 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,065	2,449
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.

Burlingame Commute Map

On average, it takes 28.7 minutes to get to work in Burlingame. That's 28% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 27.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Burlingame

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Burlingame: 3.6 times more than the California average (0.8% vs 0.2%).

Driving is 23% less common in Burlingame than the California average (57.9% vs 75.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Burlingame, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Burlingame 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	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	78.5%	4.6%	12.6%	2.5%	0.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	78.9%	4.5%	11.9%	2.7%	0.8%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	78.4%	5.8%	10.8%	3.3%	0.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	78.0%	6.3%	10.4%	3.6%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	78.0%	5.6%	12.3%	3.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	76.7%	5.8%	13.7%	2.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	75.9%	6.1%	14.7%	2.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	75.4%	5.8%	15.5%	2.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	73.0%	6.1%	16.3%	3.4%	0.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	72.3%	6.4%	15.1%	4.2%	0.4%	0.9%	0.4%	0.3%
2019	72.0%	6.6%	15.4%	4.0%	0.5%	0.8%	0.3%	0.4%
2020	68.5%	13.0%	13.5%	2.8%	0.4%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%
2021	63.8%	17.0%	12.4%	4.1%	0.6%	1.2%	0.5%	0.4%
2022	63.1%	20.2%	9.9%	4.1%	1.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%
2023	60.1%	24.3%	9.0%	4.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.8%	0.2%
2024	57.9%	27.5%	6.1%	5.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.8%	0.3%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 78.9%. Overall it fell from 78.5% in 2009 to 57.9% in 2024, down 20.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 11 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Burlingame: its share of workers rose from 4.6% in 2009 to 27.5% in 2024, up 22.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 20.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 12.6% to 6.1% of workers (down 6.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Burlingame

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Burlingame?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		7.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		18.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		11.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		1.6%

Burlingame California Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Burlingame is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 18.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.6% across California. Early starts are less common than in California: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in California: 48.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.1%) 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 Burlingame, 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 Burlingame 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 Burlingame next to California 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	Burlingame	California	United States
2009	8:05 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:09 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:10 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:13 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:04 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:05 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:03 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:00 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:59 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:04 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:01 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:58 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:03 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:00 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:03 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:07 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Burlingame were on the road by 8:07 AM, 2 minutes later than in 2009 (8:05 AM). Across California the shift was bigger still, with the typical start moving 6 minutes later. Commuters in Burlingame now leave 29 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 Burlingame has moved 6 minutes later.

How does Burlingame's commute time compare?

Metric	Burlingame	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.7 min	23.5 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	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	27.5%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	5.3%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	6.1%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Burlingame is 28.7 minutes, longer than the 23.5 minutes in California.

6.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 2.9% in California. 5.3% commute by walking, higher than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Burlingame, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Burlingame, CA is the 3rd largest of the 4 cities compared here, 29,545 residents against a local median of 59,175. The measure that sets Burlingame, CA apart most is work from home: 27.5%, 24% above the local median of 22.2%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 28.7 min against a local median of 23.2 min, 24% above it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 24% above the local median it puts Burlingame, CA at the weaker end of the local range. The cities themselves spread 7.4% on work from home, so Burlingame, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Burlingame, CA has the highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Burlingame, CA	29,545	28.7 min #4/4	27.5% #1/4	8:07 AM #2/4
Millbrae, CA	22,069	27.2 min	22.2%	8:11 AM
San Mateo, CA	101,951	23.2 min	24.7%	8:12 AM
South San Francisco, CA	59,175	22.3 min	17.3%	7:53 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Burlingame, California.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Burlingame, California?

Commuters here spend an estimated 239 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,417 at a typical national wage. That's 22% more than the typical California commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Burlingame, California?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Burlingame, California. 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.

How much money can remote workers save in Burlingame, California?

About 27.5% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Burlingame would save about 96 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,967 at the same national wage assumption used above.