El Dorado County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in El Dorado County, 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, 8:13 PM

Is the commute in El Dorado County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:13 PM

Commute Time Burden in El Dorado County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in El Dorado County spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 179 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 2.0 minutes.

El Dorado County holds about 0.5% of California's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in El Dorado County would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,223 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)
El Dorado County	21.5 min	43.0 min	179 hrs/yr	$5,556	2,046
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.

Commute Time Map: California Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in California

Inyo County (11.1 min)
Mono County (12.0 min)
Del Norte County (12.1 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in California

Alpine County (31.3 min)
San Benito County (31.2 min)
Contra Costa County (31.0 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

El Dorado County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 21.5 minutes to get to work in El Dorado County. That's 4% 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 22.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in El Dorado County

Public transit is unusually rare in El Dorado County: 5.7 times less than the California average (0.5% vs 2.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in El Dorado County: 5.6 times less than the California average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in El Dorado County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in El Dorado County 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	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	87.4%	7.0%	2.0%	0.7%	0.9%	1.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2010	87.2%	7.4%	2.0%	0.6%	0.7%	1.5%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	87.0%	7.3%	2.2%	0.7%	0.8%	1.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2012	87.0%	7.5%	2.1%	0.9%	0.8%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%
2013	86.9%	7.6%	2.4%	0.7%	0.7%	1.2%	0.5%	0.1%
2014	86.4%	7.5%	2.5%	0.7%	0.7%	1.5%	0.4%	0.1%
2015	85.7%	7.7%	2.7%	0.7%	1.0%	1.7%	0.4%	0.1%
2016	86.1%	7.9%	2.3%	0.6%	0.9%	1.8%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	86.0%	8.3%	2.3%	0.5%	0.6%	1.9%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	85.1%	9.5%	2.0%	0.6%	0.7%	1.7%	0.3%	0.2%
2019	85.5%	9.4%	1.9%	0.6%	0.8%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	83.9%	11.6%	1.6%	0.7%	0.8%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	80.9%	15.1%	1.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	78.4%	17.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	76.6%	19.2%	1.9%	1.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	73.0%	22.1%	2.4%	1.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 87.4% in 2009 to 73.0% in 2024, down 14.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in El Dorado County: its share of workers rose from 7.0% in 2009 to 22.1% in 2024, up 15.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.4% to 0.5% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in El Dorado County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in El Dorado County?

The bars show when commuters in El Dorado County 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		5.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.3%

El Dorado County California Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in El Dorado County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are less common than in California: 12.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in California: 48.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.9%) 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 El Dorado County, 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 El Dorado County 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 El Dorado County 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	El Dorado County	California	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:39 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:38 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in El Dorado County were on the road by 7:44 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). The shift is sharper than across California, where the typical start moved 6 minutes later. Commuters in El Dorado County now leave 6 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 El Dorado County has moved 6 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for El Dorado County in the whole series.

How does El Dorado County's commute time compare?

Metric	El Dorado County	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.5 min	23.5 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.1%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in El Dorado County is 21.5 minutes, shorter than the 23.5 minutes in California.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

El Dorado County, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

El Dorado County, CA is the 2nd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 192,661 residents against a local median of 46,248. The measure that sets El Dorado County, CA apart most is work from home: 22.1%, 21% above the local median of 18.3%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 21.5 min against a local median of 25.9 min, 17% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 17% below the local median it puts El Dorado County, CA at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 11.7% on work from home, so El Dorado County, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. El Dorado County, CA has the 3rd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
El Dorado County, CA	192,661	21.5 min #2/6	22.1% #3/6	7:44 AM #4/6
Placer County, CA	418,934	22.3 min	22.7%	7:38 AM
Amador County, CA	41,428	25.9 min	13.3%	7:29 AM
Calaveras County, CA	46,248	30.5 min	15.9%	7:16 AM
Nevada County, CA	102,481	17.7 min	25.0%	7:54 AM
Alpine County, CA	1,616	31.3 min	18.3%	7:57 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in El Dorado County, California.

What is the financial impact of commuting in El Dorado County, California?

Commuters here spend an estimated 179 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,556 at a typical national wage. That's 8% less than the typical California commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in El Dorado County, California?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in El Dorado County, California. 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.

Do people use public transit in El Dorado County, California?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.5% of commuters use it versus 2.9% in California, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in California have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in California, the shortest average commutes are in Inyo County (11.1 min), Mono County (12.0 min), Del Norte County (12.1 min). The longest are in Alpine County (31.3 min), San Benito County (31.2 min), Contra Costa County (31.0 min).