Flint Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 4:06 PM

Is the commute in Flint longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:06 PM

Commute Time Burden in Flint: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Flint spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 148 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 17% less time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.6 minutes.

Flint holds about 0.8% of Michigan's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Flint would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,830 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)
Flint	17.7 min	35.4 min	148 hrs/yr	$4,575	2,209
Michigan	21.3 min	42.6 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,509	1,585
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.

Flint Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Flint. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM, followed by 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Flint

Public transit is unusually common in Flint: 3.7 times more than the Michigan average (3.4% vs 0.9%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Flint, versus 0.1% in Michigan.

Commute Mode Trends in Flint, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Flint 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	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	90.0%	2.7%	4.2%	2.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	90.1%	3.0%	3.6%	2.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	89.7%	3.0%	3.7%	2.5%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	88.8%	3.4%	4.2%	2.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	88.0%	3.5%	4.4%	3.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	89.1%	3.3%	4.0%	2.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	88.2%	3.4%	4.4%	2.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	88.5%	3.1%	4.6%	2.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	89.3%	2.8%	4.6%	2.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	88.7%	2.1%	5.7%	2.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	88.4%	2.9%	5.5%	2.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	88.0%	3.0%	5.6%	2.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	87.8%	4.1%	5.1%	2.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	85.8%	6.1%	4.8%	2.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	84.7%	8.2%	4.0%	2.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.5%	8.4%	3.4%	1.9%	0.6%	0.1%	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 2010 at 90.1% and lowest in 2023 at 84.7%. Overall it fell from 90.0% in 2009 to 85.5% in 2024, down 4.5 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Flint: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2024, up 5.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.2% to 3.4% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

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

Walking peaked at 3.0% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 1.9%.

Commute Start Times in Flint

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Flint?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		5.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		8.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		7.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		14.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		12.1%

Flint Michigan Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Flint is 12:00-3:59 PM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.5% across Michigan. Early starts are about as common as in Michigan: 14.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Michigan: 33.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% there. About 1 in 2 commuters (40.8%) 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 Flint, 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 Flint 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 Flint next to Michigan 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	Flint	Michigan	United States
2009	8:09 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:02 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:59 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:58 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:59 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:54 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:58 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:00 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:59 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:06 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:08 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:03 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:08 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:16 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:07 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:10 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Flint were on the road by 8:10 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Flint now leave 32 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 Flint has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Flint's commute time compare?

Metric	Flint	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 min	21.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	04:00 PM – 11:59 PM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.4%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.4%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Flint is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 21.3 minutes in Michigan.

3.4% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.9% in Michigan. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Flint, MI Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Flint, MI compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Flint, MI	80,168	17.7 min #1/2	8.4% #1/2	8:10 AM #2/2
Burton, MI	29,500	20.4 min	6.6%	8:01 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Flint, Michigan.

Is commuting expensive in Flint, Michigan?

Commuters here spend an estimated 148 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,575 at a typical national wage. That's 17% less than the typical Michigan commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Flint, Michigan?

Traffic peaks between 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM in Flint, Michigan. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM also sees a secondary bump.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Flint, Michigan?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 3.4% of commuters use it versus 0.9% in Michigan, making it a realistic option for many workers.