South San Francisco Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in South San Francisco, 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, 3:40 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in South San Francisco?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:40 PM

Commute Time Burden in South San Francisco: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in South San Francisco spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 186 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

South San Francisco holds about 0.2% of California's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in South San Francisco would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,301 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)
South San Francisco	22.3 min	44.5 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,752	3,385
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.

South San Francisco Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.3 minutes to get to work in South San Francisco. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 17.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in South San Francisco

Commute Mode Trends in South San Francisco, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in South San Francisco 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	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	82.7%	2.3%	10.4%	3.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	81.5%	3.0%	10.7%	3.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	82.0%	2.8%	10.8%	3.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	82.6%	2.3%	10.0%	3.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	82.0%	2.4%	10.3%	4.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	81.6%	2.3%	11.2%	3.5%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	82.5%	2.1%	11.4%	2.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	79.7%	2.4%	13.7%	2.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	79.1%	2.5%	14.0%	2.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	78.3%	2.8%	14.6%	2.4%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%
2019	77.5%	3.4%	15.3%	2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%
2020	75.3%	5.8%	15.3%	1.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%
2021	73.2%	10.6%	12.5%	1.8%	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2022	72.8%	12.7%	10.4%	1.8%	0.7%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	71.2%	16.1%	8.8%	2.0%	0.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	72.5%	17.3%	5.8%	1.9%	1.0%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2023 at 71.2%. Overall it fell from 82.7% in 2009 to 72.5% in 2024, down 10.2 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in South San Francisco: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 17.3% in 2024, up 15.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 10.4% to 5.8% of workers (down 4.6 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in South San Francisco

What Time Do People Leave for Work in South San Francisco?

The bars show when commuters in South San Francisco 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		5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		15.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in South San Francisco is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 15.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.6% across California. Early starts are less common than in California: 12.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in California: 49.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.5%) 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 South San Francisco, 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 South San Francisco 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 South San Francisco 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	South San Francisco	California	United States
2009	7:58 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:03 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:04 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:07 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:07 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:05 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:59 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:58 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:55 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:52 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:54 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:50 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:50 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:56 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:53 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in South San Francisco were on the road by 7:53 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:58 AM). That goes against the trend across California, where the typical commuter now leaves 6 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in South San Francisco now leave 15 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does South San Francisco's commute time compare?

Metric	South San Francisco	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.3 min	23.5 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	17.3%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	5.8%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in South San Francisco is 22.3 minutes, shorter than the 23.5 minutes in California.

5.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 2.9% in California. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

South San Francisco, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

South San Francisco, CA is the largest of the 4 cities compared here, 59,175 residents against a local median of 29,545. South San Francisco, CA's work from home, at 17.3%, runs 22% below the 22.2% typical of the cities around it.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 22.3 min against a local median of 27.2 min, 18% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 18% below the local median it puts South San Francisco, CA at the better end of the local range. The cities themselves spread 8.9% on work from home, so South San Francisco, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. South San Francisco, CA has the 4th highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
South San Francisco, CA	59,175	22.3 min #2/4	17.3% #4/4	7:53 AM #1/4
Burlingame, CA	29,545	28.7 min	27.5%	8:07 AM
Millbrae, CA	22,069	27.2 min	22.2%	8:11 AM
San Bruno, CA	39,357	21.7 min	18.6%	8:06 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in South San Francisco, California.

Is commuting expensive in South San Francisco, California?

Commuters here spend an estimated 186 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,752 at a typical national wage. That's 5% less than the typical California commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in South San Francisco, California?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in South San Francisco, California. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.