Fairfield Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Fairfield, 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, 3:42 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Fairfield?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:42 PM

Commute Time Burden in Fairfield: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fairfield spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 186 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

Fairfield holds about 0.2% of California's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fairfield would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,300 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)
Fairfield	22.3 min	44.5 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,751	3,413
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.

Fairfield Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.3 minutes to get to work in Fairfield. That's 1% 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 10.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fairfield

Commute Mode Trends in Fairfield, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fairfield 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	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	92.3%	2.8%	2.0%	2.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	92.2%	2.9%	1.9%	2.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	83.9%	4.9%	6.8%	3.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	85.2%	4.5%	5.8%	2.9%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%
2013	88.5%	3.6%	3.9%	2.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	89.0%	3.3%	3.6%	2.6%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	89.8%	2.9%	2.4%	3.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%
2016	91.2%	2.7%	2.2%	2.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	91.2%	3.1%	1.9%	2.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.4%
2018	90.9%	3.4%	1.9%	2.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%
2019	91.0%	4.0%	1.5%	2.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%
2020	90.0%	5.7%	1.3%	1.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	87.6%	7.3%	1.3%	2.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%
2022	86.0%	8.9%	1.7%	1.7%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%
2023	85.8%	9.4%	1.7%	1.4%	0.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2024	84.8%	10.3%	1.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2011 at 83.9%. Overall it fell from 92.3% in 2009 to 84.8% in 2024, down 7.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fairfield: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 10.3% in 2024, up 7.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.0% to 1.0% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 6.8% in 2011 and has since fallen back to 1.8%.

Commute Start Times in Fairfield

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fairfield?

The bars show when commuters in Fairfield 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		9.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		7.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		7.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Fairfield is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 23.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in California: 36.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.7%) 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 Fairfield, 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield 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	Fairfield	California	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:17 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fairfield were on the road by 7:28 AM, 6 minutes later than in 2009 (7:23 AM). California followed the same path, with the typical start moving 6 minutes later. Commuters in Fairfield now leave 9 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Fairfield has moved 8 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Fairfield in the whole series.

How does Fairfield's commute time compare?

Metric	Fairfield	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.3 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	10.3%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.0%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fairfield is 22.3 minutes, shorter than the 23.5 minutes in California.

1.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Fairfield, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Fairfield, CA compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Fairfield, CA	86,603	22.3 min #2/2	10.3% #2/2	7:28 AM #1/2
Vacaville, CA	88,902	20.5 min	12.4%	7:37 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Fairfield, California.

Is living in Fairfield, California good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 186 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,751 at a typical national wage. That's 5% less than the typical California commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Fairfield, California?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Fairfield, 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.