San Mateo County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in San Mateo County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in San Mateo 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 196 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting.

That is about the same time on the road as the California average of 23.6 minutes each way.

San Mateo County holds about 1.9% of California's population and accounts for roughly 1.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in San Mateo County would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,434 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 Mateo County	23.6 min	47.1 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,086	3,407
California	23.6 min	47.2 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,099	2,449
United States	22.5 min	44.9 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,803	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

On average, it takes 23.6 minutes to get to work in San Mateo County. That's 5% longer than the 22.5-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 79% of counties in California

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM , followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM .

Most people travel to work by Car , followed by Worked at Home . About 22.0% work from home.

Commute mode distribution

• Car: 66.3%
• Worked at Home: 22.0%
• Public Transportation: 6.4%
• Walked: 2.3%
• Other: 1.4%
• Bicycle: 1.2%
• Taxi: 0.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%

How does San Mateo County's commute time compare?

Metric	San Mateo County	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.6 min	23.6 min	22.5 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.0%	15.5%	13.4%
Walked	2.3%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	6.4%	3.2%	3.5%

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

6.4% commute by public transit, higher than the 3.2% in California. 2.3% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau