Seaside Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Seaside, 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, 7:53 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Seaside?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:53 PM

Commute Time Burden in Seaside: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Seaside spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 154 hours, about 6.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 5.0 minutes.

Seaside 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 Seaside would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,914 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)
Seaside	18.5 min	37.0 min	154 hrs/yr	$4,784	3,066
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.

Seaside Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.5 minutes to get to work in Seaside. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Seaside

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Seaside: 4.2 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.2%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Seaside, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Seaside 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	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	80.0%	2.9%	4.3%	1.4%	8.4%	2.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	82.1%	3.6%	4.1%	1.0%	6.9%	1.9%	0.5%	0.0%
2011	80.1%	4.3%	3.9%	1.4%	8.0%	1.9%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	81.1%	5.1%	3.6%	1.3%	6.7%	1.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	80.7%	6.0%	3.5%	1.9%	6.3%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%
2014	77.9%	5.5%	3.9%	4.9%	6.1%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2015	77.8%	5.0%	4.1%	4.8%	6.2%	1.8%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	80.9%	4.2%	3.4%	4.5%	5.1%	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	81.5%	4.9%	3.3%	4.4%	4.0%	1.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	83.5%	3.6%	3.3%	4.0%	3.6%	1.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	85.7%	4.0%	2.7%	1.2%	4.6%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	85.6%	4.6%	2.5%	2.0%	3.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	85.1%	6.2%	2.3%	1.9%	2.9%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	83.0%	7.6%	3.1%	2.0%	2.6%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	83.1%	7.7%	3.8%	2.1%	1.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	84.1%	7.8%	3.7%	1.8%	1.3%	1.2%	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 85.7% and lowest in 2015 at 77.8%. Overall it rose from 80.0% in 2009 to 84.1% in 2024, up 4.1 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Seaside: its share of workers rose from 2.9% in 2009 to 7.8% in 2024, up 4.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 8.4% to 1.3% of workers (down 7.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Seaside

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Seaside?

The bars show when commuters in Seaside 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		4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		5.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		19.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		10.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Seaside is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are less common than in California: 9.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in California: 48.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (32.4%) 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 Seaside, 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 Seaside 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 Seaside 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	Seaside	California	United States
2009	7:51 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:54 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:57 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:56 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:02 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:00 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:56 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:50 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:46 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:48 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:53 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:55 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:00 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:03 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:03 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Seaside were on the road by 8:03 AM, 12 minutes later than in 2009 (7:51 AM). The shift is sharper than across California, where the typical start moved 6 minutes later. Commuters in Seaside now leave 26 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Seaside has moved 15 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Seaside in the whole series.

How does Seaside's commute time compare?

Metric	Seaside	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.5 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.8%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	3.7%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Seaside is 18.5 minutes, shorter than the 23.5 minutes in California.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 3.7% commute by walking, higher than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Seaside, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

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

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Seaside, CA	26,690	18.5 min #2/2	7.8% #2/2	8:03 AM #2/2
Monterey, CA	26,676	15.7 min	23.6%	7:45 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Seaside, California.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 154 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,784 at a typical national wage. That's 21% less than the typical California commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Seaside, California. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.