San Bernardino Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in San Bernardino, 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 San Bernardino?

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

Commute Time Burden in San Bernardino: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in San Bernardino spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 192 hours, about 8.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 0.5 minutes.

San Bernardino holds about 0.6% of California's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in San Bernardino would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,379 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)
San Bernardino	23.0 min	46.0 min	192 hrs/yr	$5,947	2,261
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.

San Bernardino Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.0 minutes to get to work in San Bernardino. That's 3% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 5.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in San Bernardino

Commute Mode Trends in San Bernardino, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in San Bernardino 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	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	89.7%	4.3%	2.8%	1.7%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	90.2%	3.7%	2.9%	1.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	90.8%	3.5%	2.7%	1.7%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	90.2%	3.3%	2.9%	2.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	89.9%	3.8%	2.7%	2.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2014	89.9%	3.7%	2.8%	2.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	90.1%	3.8%	2.7%	2.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2016	90.4%	3.8%	2.6%	2.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2017	90.2%	3.9%	2.3%	2.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2018	90.7%	3.4%	2.3%	2.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2019	90.9%	3.6%	2.0%	2.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	90.6%	3.5%	2.0%	2.1%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	89.6%	4.7%	1.8%	2.2%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	90.1%	5.1%	1.7%	1.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	89.7%	5.7%	1.4%	1.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	89.9%	5.9%	1.2%	1.2%	1.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2019 at 90.9% and lowest in 2021 at 89.6%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 89.7% in 2009 and 89.9% in 2024.

Working from home gained the most ground in San Bernardino: its share of workers rose from 4.3% in 2009 to 5.9% in 2024, up 1.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.8% to 1.2% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in San Bernardino

What Time Do People Leave for Work in San Bernardino?

The bars show when commuters in San Bernardino 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		14.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		8.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		6.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in San Bernardino is 12:00-4:59 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 6.7% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 27.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in California: 33.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.1%) 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 San Bernardino, 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 San Bernardino 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 San Bernardino 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	San Bernardino	California	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:16 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:15 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:13 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:14 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in San Bernardino were on the road by 7:14 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:22 AM). That goes against the trend across California, where the typical commuter now leaves 6 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in San Bernardino now leave 24 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 San Bernardino has moved 6 minutes earlier.

How does San Bernardino's commute time compare?

Metric	San Bernardino	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.0 min	23.5 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 AM – 04:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.9%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.2%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in San Bernardino is about the same as in California.

1.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

San Bernardino, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

San Bernardino, CA is the largest of the 4 cities compared here, 229,846 residents against a local median of 56,403. San Bernardino, CA's work from home, at 5.9%, runs 33% below the 8.8% typical of the cities around it.

The cities themselves spread 2.5% on work from home, so San Bernardino, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. San Bernardino, CA has the 4th highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
San Bernardino, CA	229,846	23.0 min #3/4	5.9% #4/4	7:14 AM #3/4
Colton, CA	56,403	22.3 min	8.8%	7:10 AM
Rialto, CA	109,274	26.6 min	8.1%	7:07 AM
Loma Linda, CA	21,884	16.5 min	10.7%	7:54 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in San Bernardino, California.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 192 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,947 at a typical national wage. That's 2% less than the typical California commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM in San Bernardino, California. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.