Gardena Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Gardena, 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, 3:39 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Gardena?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:39 PM

Commute Time Burden in Gardena: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Gardena spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 214 hours, about 8.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 9% more time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 2.2 minutes.

Gardena 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 Gardena would save about 86 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,655 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)
Gardena	25.7 min	51.4 min	214 hrs/yr	$6,638	4,244
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.

Gardena Commute Map

On average, it takes 25.7 minutes to get to work in Gardena. That's 15% longer 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 9.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Gardena

Commute Mode Trends in Gardena, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Gardena 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	90.1%	2.8%	3.3%	2.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.6%	0.0%
2010	89.0%	2.8%	4.3%	2.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2011	89.9%	2.3%	4.2%	2.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	90.6%	1.4%	4.4%	2.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2013	90.8%	1.2%	3.9%	2.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	90.4%	1.4%	4.8%	2.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	90.1%	1.6%	4.1%	2.5%	1.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	89.3%	2.0%	4.6%	2.2%	1.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	88.5%	2.6%	4.6%	2.0%	1.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	88.1%	2.9%	4.4%	2.4%	1.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.1%
2019	88.1%	3.4%	3.5%	2.6%	1.6%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%
2020	87.8%	5.2%	3.1%	1.7%	1.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%
2021	87.0%	7.1%	2.4%	1.6%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%
2022	85.5%	8.1%	2.3%	2.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.4%
2023	84.1%	8.8%	2.7%	2.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.4%
2024	83.2%	9.7%	2.9%	1.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 90.8%. Overall it fell from 90.1% in 2009 to 83.2% in 2024, down 6.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Gardena: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 9.7% in 2024, up 6.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 4.8% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 2.9%.

Commute Start Times in Gardena

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Gardena?

The bars show when commuters in Gardena 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		6.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Gardena is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 11.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.6% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 17.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush looks much like California's: 42.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.3%) 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 Gardena, 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 Gardena 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 Gardena 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	Gardena	California	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:36 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:46 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Gardena were on the road by 7:45 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:41 AM). Across California the shift was bigger still, with the typical start moving 6 minutes later. Commuters in Gardena now leave 7 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 Gardena has moved 7 minutes later.

How does Gardena's commute time compare?

Metric	Gardena	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.7 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.7%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.9%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Gardena is 25.7 minutes, longer than the 23.5 minutes in California.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as California. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Gardena, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Gardena, CA is the 2nd largest of the 4 cities compared here, 59,400 residents against a local median of 30,784. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest cities, which makes Gardena, CA an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 9% above the local median at 25.7 min against 23.5 min. Gardena, CA has the 3rd lowest one-way commute of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Gardena, CA	59,400	25.7 min #3/4	9.7% #2/4	7:45 AM #2/4
West Rancho Dominguez, CA	22,667	30.5 min	9.1%	7:24 AM
Hawthorne, CA	87,568	23.5 min	11.2%	7:48 AM
Lawndale, CA	30,784	21.6 min	7.2%	7:55 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Gardena, California.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 214 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,638 at a typical national wage. That's 9% more than the typical California commuter spends.

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

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