Madera County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Madera County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Madera County spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 195 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is about the same time on the road as the California average of 23.5 minutes each way.

Madera County holds about 0.4% of California's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Madera County would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,419 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)
Madera County	23.4 min	46.8 min	195 hrs/yr	$6,048	2,127
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

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 23.4 minutes to get to work in Madera County. That's 4% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 77% of counties in California

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 9.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Madera County

• Car: 83.5%
• Worked at Home: 9.7%
• Other: 4.5%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Motorcycle: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Madera County: 10.0 times less than the California average (0.3% vs 2.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Madera County: 15.7 times less than the California average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Madera County: 6.4 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Commute Mode Trends in Madera County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Madera 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Walked
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	90.5%	5.8%	0.8%	2.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	90.3%	5.9%	1.2%	1.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	89.6%	6.1%	1.3%	2.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	89.2%	6.6%	1.3%	2.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	89.7%	6.1%	1.3%	1.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2014	89.4%	5.5%	1.6%	2.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2015	90.3%	4.7%	1.5%	2.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	91.4%	4.0%	1.4%	2.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	91.9%	3.6%	1.5%	2.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	91.2%	3.4%	2.6%	1.8%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	90.4%	3.7%	3.5%	1.7%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	88.7%	4.9%	3.5%	1.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	86.9%	6.8%	3.7%	1.6%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	85.9%	7.5%	4.4%	1.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	84.5%	8.4%	4.3%	2.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	83.5%	9.7%	4.5%	1.6%	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 peaked in 2017 at 91.9%. Overall it fell from 90.5% in 2009 to 83.5% in 2024, down 7.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Madera County: its share of workers rose from 5.8% in 2009 to 9.7% in 2024, up 3.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Madera County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Madera County?

The bars show when commuters in Madera 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	12:00-4:59 AM Madera County9.8% California6.7%	9.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Madera County7.2% California4.5%	7.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Madera County6.7% California4.5%	6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Madera County11.6% California8.4%	11.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Madera County8.7% California7.5%	8.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Madera County14.1% California13.1%	14.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Madera County9.5% California10.2%	9.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Madera County8.7% California12.6%	8.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Madera County2.1% California5.8%	2.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Madera County4.7% California8.6%	4.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Madera County3.7% California3.9%	3.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Madera County0.9% California1.8%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Madera County7.3% California6.9%	7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Madera County4.9% California5.5%	4.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Madera County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 23.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in California: 41.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.5%) 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 Madera 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 Madera 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 Madera 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.

• Madera County
• California
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Madera County	California	United States
2009	7:12 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:13 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:16 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:19 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:19 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:15 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:12 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:09 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:07 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:06 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:06 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:11 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:13 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Madera County were on the road by 7:13 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across California, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 6 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Madera County now leave 25 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 Madera County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Madera County's commute time compare?

Metric	Madera County	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.4 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	9.7%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Madera County is about the same as in California.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau