Baltimore Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Baltimore, Maryland: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:01 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Baltimore?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:01 PM

Commute Time Burden in Baltimore: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Baltimore spend about 48 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 199 hours, about 8.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% less time on the road than the Maryland average of 28.3 minutes each way, a difference of 4.4 minutes.

Baltimore holds about 9.2% of Maryland's population but accounts for roughly 7.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Baltimore would save about 80 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,465 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)
Baltimore	23.9 min	47.7 min	199 hrs/yr	$6,163	2,867
Maryland	28.3 min	56.5 min	236 hrs/yr	$7,301	2,353
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.

Baltimore Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.9 minutes to get to work in Baltimore. That's 6% longer 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 17.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Baltimore

Commute Mode Trends in Baltimore, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Baltimore 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	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	70.1%	2.6%	18.6%	6.8%	0.9%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%
2010	70.2%	2.7%	18.5%	6.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%
2011	70.6%	2.7%	18.4%	6.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%
2012	70.3%	2.8%	18.2%	6.5%	0.8%	0.4%	0.8%	0.1%
2013	70.5%	2.8%	17.8%	6.6%	0.9%	0.4%	0.9%	0.1%
2014	70.2%	2.8%	18.2%	6.7%	0.8%	0.4%	0.8%	0.1%
2015	69.5%	3.1%	18.6%	6.7%	0.9%	0.4%	0.8%	0.1%
2016	69.0%	3.7%	18.4%	6.7%	0.9%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%
2017	69.1%	3.8%	18.2%	6.6%	0.9%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%
2018	69.0%	4.2%	18.0%	6.4%	1.0%	0.5%	0.9%	0.0%
2019	69.0%	4.5%	17.5%	6.4%	1.0%	0.6%	0.9%	0.1%
2020	67.8%	7.1%	16.1%	6.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.9%	0.1%
2021	66.0%	10.7%	14.4%	5.9%	1.4%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%
2022	65.2%	13.4%	12.8%	5.5%	1.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.1%
2023	63.7%	15.9%	11.5%	5.6%	1.7%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%
2024	62.6%	17.8%	10.3%	5.6%	1.7%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 70.6%. Overall it fell from 70.1% in 2009 to 62.6% in 2024, down 7.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Baltimore: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 17.8% in 2024, up 15.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 18.6% to 10.3% of workers (down 8.3 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 Baltimore

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Baltimore?

The bars show when commuters in Baltimore 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 Maryland for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		11.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.7%

Baltimore Maryland Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Baltimore is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.0% across Maryland. Early starts are less common than in Maryland: 11.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Maryland: 43.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.3% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (30.3%) 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 Baltimore, 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 Baltimore 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 Baltimore next to Maryland 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	Baltimore	Maryland	United States
2009	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:48 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:51 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:53 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:53 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:56 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:59 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Baltimore were on the road by 7:59 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:49 AM). The shift is sharper than across Maryland, where the typical start moved 4 minutes later. Commuters in Baltimore now leave 21 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 Baltimore has moved 10 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Baltimore in the whole series.

How does Baltimore's commute time compare?

Metric	Baltimore	Maryland	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.9 min	28.3 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	17.8%	19.3%	15.0%
Walked	5.6%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	10.3%	4.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Baltimore is 23.9 minutes, shorter than the 28.3 minutes in Maryland.

10.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 4.2% in Maryland. 5.6% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Maryland.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Baltimore, MD Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Baltimore, MD compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Baltimore, MD	573,154	23.9 min #3/3	17.8% #2/3	7:59 AM #2/3
Towson, MD	60,458	22.2 min	23.0%	8:12 AM
Arbutus, MD	22,506	22.1 min	13.6%	7:42 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Baltimore, Maryland.

Is commuting expensive in Baltimore, Maryland?

Commuters here spend an estimated 199 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,163 at a typical national wage. That's 16% less than the typical Maryland commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Baltimore, Maryland?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Baltimore, Maryland. 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.