Gilroy Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 7:33 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Gilroy?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:33 PM

Commute Time Burden in Gilroy: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Gilroy spend about 57 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 240 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 5.3 minutes.

Gilroy 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 Gilroy would save about 96 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,970 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)
Gilroy	28.7 min	57.5 min	240 hrs/yr	$7,426	3,278
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.

Gilroy Commute Map

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

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 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 Gilroy

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Gilroy: 3.5 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.2%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Gilroy, versus 0.2% in California.

Commute Mode Trends in Gilroy, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Gilroy 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	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	86.5%	3.5%	3.3%	3.2%	0.6%	2.1%	0.7%	0.1%
2010	87.7%	3.5%	2.2%	2.8%	0.8%	2.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	89.8%	2.7%	1.8%	2.1%	1.1%	2.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2012	88.5%	3.6%	1.7%	2.5%	1.0%	2.5%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	86.7%	3.5%	1.6%	2.6%	0.8%	4.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	87.0%	3.0%	1.6%	2.7%	1.0%	4.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2015	86.3%	3.4%	2.0%	2.6%	0.9%	3.8%	0.2%	0.7%
2016	86.3%	3.8%	1.7%	2.8%	1.0%	3.5%	0.2%	0.7%
2017	87.8%	3.0%	2.0%	2.3%	0.9%	2.9%	0.2%	0.7%
2018	90.2%	3.9%	1.7%	1.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.7%
2019	90.4%	4.5%	1.6%	1.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%
2020	90.2%	5.8%	0.9%	2.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	88.3%	7.6%	1.0%	2.1%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	87.2%	9.0%	1.2%	1.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	85.3%	10.4%	1.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	86.4%	10.3%	1.5%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2019 at 90.4% and lowest in 2023 at 85.3%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 86.5% in 2009 and 86.4% in 2024. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Gilroy: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 10.3% in 2024, up 6.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 3.2% to 1.1% of workers (down 2.1 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Gilroy

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Gilroy?

The bars show when commuters in Gilroy 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		9.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		8.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Gilroy is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 20.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in California: 39.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.9%) 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 Gilroy, 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 Gilroy 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 Gilroy 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	Gilroy	California	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:25 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:22 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:17 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Gilroy were on the road by 7:20 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:29 AM). That goes against the trend across California, where the typical commuter now leaves 6 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Gilroy now leave 18 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 Gilroy has moved 5 minutes earlier.

How does Gilroy's commute time compare?

Metric	Gilroy	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.7 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.3%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.1%	2.9%	3.2%

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

1.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 1.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Gilroy, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

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

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Gilroy, CA	43,150	28.7 min #1/2	10.3% #2/2	7:20 AM #1/2
Morgan Hill, CA	31,183	31.9 min	22.2%	7:35 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Gilroy, California.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 240 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,426 at a typical national wage. That's 22% more than the typical California commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Gilroy, California. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.