Southgate Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Southgate: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Southgate spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% less time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.

Southgate holds about 0.3% of Michigan's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Southgate would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,174 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)
Southgate	21.0 min	42.1 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,435	3,712
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.

Southgate Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.0 minutes to get to work in Southgate. That's 6% 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 12.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Southgate

• Car: 84.1%
• Worked at Home: 12.1%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 1.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.2% unusually high
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Southgate: 3.7 times more than the Michigan average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Southgate: 8.8 times less than the Michigan average (0.1% vs 0.9%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Southgate: 4.7 times less than the Michigan average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Southgate, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Southgate 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	97.4%	1.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	97.5%	1.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	96.8%	1.3%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	96.7%	1.1%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	97.1%	1.0%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	96.6%	0.9%	1.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	96.4%	0.9%	1.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	96.5%	1.2%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	95.8%	1.8%	1.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	94.9%	2.5%	1.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	94.9%	2.3%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%
2020	91.9%	5.4%	0.8%	0.4%	0.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%
2021	88.9%	7.9%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%
2022	86.5%	9.8%	1.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.4%
2023	84.6%	10.6%	1.9%	1.5%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.4%
2024	84.1%	12.1%	2.0%	1.3%	0.2%	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 peaked in 2010 at 97.5%. Overall it fell from 97.4% in 2009 to 84.1% in 2024, down 13.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Southgate: its share of workers rose from 1.3% in 2009 to 12.1% in 2024, up 10.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Southgate

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Southgate?

The bars show when commuters in Southgate 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	12:00-4:59 AM Southgate4.7% Michigan5.3%	4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Southgate3.4% Michigan3.9%	3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Southgate7.1% Michigan5.1%	7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Southgate9.4% Michigan8.0%	9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Southgate7.9% Michigan9.0%	7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Southgate11.8% Michigan13.0%	11.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Southgate9.6% Michigan12.1%	9.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Southgate10.6% Michigan10.9%	10.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Southgate5.8% Michigan5.6%	5.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Southgate5.2% Michigan6.7%	5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Southgate2.7% Michigan3.2%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Southgate2.3% Michigan1.6%	2.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Southgate8.9% Michigan8.5%	8.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Southgate10.4% Michigan7.1%	10.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Southgate is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Michigan. Early starts are about as common as in Michigan: 15.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Michigan: 40.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (29.6%) 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 Southgate, 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 Southgate 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 Southgate 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.

• Southgate
• Michigan
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Southgate	Michigan	United States
2009	7:50 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:55 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:50 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:40 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:36 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:41 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Southgate were on the road by 7:48 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:50 AM). Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Southgate now leave 10 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 Southgate has moved 10 minutes later.

How does Southgate's commute time compare?

Metric	Southgate	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 min	21.3 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	12.1%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Southgate is about the same as in Michigan.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Michigan. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau