Lemon Grove Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Lemon Grove, 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

Is the commute in Lemon Grove longer than the national average?

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

Commute Time Burden in Lemon Grove: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lemon Grove spend about 53 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 219 hours, about 9.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% more time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Lemon Grove 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 Lemon Grove would save about 88 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,715 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)
Lemon Grove	26.3 min	52.6 min	219 hrs/yr	$6,788	4,362
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.

Lemon Grove Commute Map

On average, it takes 26.3 minutes to get to work in Lemon Grove. That's 17% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lemon Grove

Biking is unusually rare in Lemon Grove: 12.0 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lemon Grove, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lemon Grove 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	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	90.8%	2.6%	4.2%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%
2010	90.7%	2.5%	4.2%	1.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	92.3%	2.4%	3.4%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	90.6%	3.4%	3.6%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	89.6%	4.0%	3.9%	1.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	88.6%	4.5%	4.5%	1.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%
2015	87.8%	5.0%	4.1%	1.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.8%	0.2%
2016	86.4%	6.4%	4.1%	1.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2017	86.4%	6.4%	4.3%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%
2018	87.9%	5.4%	3.5%	1.4%	0.7%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%
2019	87.8%	6.0%	3.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%
2020	86.5%	9.2%	2.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	85.3%	9.7%	3.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2022	84.2%	11.5%	2.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	82.7%	11.8%	3.3%	0.9%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2024	84.0%	11.2%	2.4%	1.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2011 at 92.3% and lowest in 2023 at 82.7%. Overall it fell from 90.8% in 2009 to 84.0% in 2024, down 6.8 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lemon Grove: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 11.2% in 2024, up 8.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.2% to 2.4% of workers (down 1.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2015 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Lemon Grove

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lemon Grove?

The bars show when commuters in Lemon Grove 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		9.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		8.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lemon Grove is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 21.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in California: 39.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.8%) 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 Lemon Grove, 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 Lemon Grove 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 Lemon Grove 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	Lemon Grove	California	United States
2009	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:15 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:16 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:14 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:13 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:15 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:12 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:11 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:16 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:09 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:10 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:13 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:23 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lemon Grove were on the road by 7:23 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (7:17 AM). California followed the same path, with the typical start moving 6 minutes later. Commuters in Lemon Grove now leave 15 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 Lemon Grove has moved 11 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Lemon Grove in the whole series.

How does Lemon Grove's commute time compare?

Metric	Lemon Grove	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	26.3 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.2%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.4%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lemon Grove is 26.3 minutes, longer than the 23.5 minutes in California.

2.4% 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

Lemon Grove, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Lemon Grove, CA is the 3rd largest of the 4 cities compared here, 28,050 residents against a local median of 34,750. Lemon Grove, CA's work from home, at 11.2%, runs 36% below the 17.6% typical of the cities around it.

The cities themselves spread 8.0% on work from home, so Lemon Grove, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Lemon Grove, CA has the 3rd highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lemon Grove, CA	28,050	26.3 min #4/4	11.2% #3/4	7:23 AM #2/4
La Presa, CA	34,750	23.6 min	9.7%	7:16 AM
La Mesa, CA	61,731	22.3 min	17.6%	7:46 AM
Casa de Oro-Mount Helix, CA	22,051	25.6 min	17.7%	7:41 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lemon Grove, California.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 219 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,788 at a typical national wage. That's 12% more than the typical California commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Lemon Grove, California. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.