Brownsville Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:21 PM

Is the commute in Brownsville longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:21 PM

Commute Time Burden in Brownsville: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Brownsville spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 171 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Brownsville holds about 0.6% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Brownsville would save about 68 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,120 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)
Brownsville	20.5 min	41.0 min	171 hrs/yr	$5,300	2,240
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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.

Brownsville Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.5 minutes to get to work in Brownsville. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Brownsville

Commute Mode Trends in Brownsville, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Brownsville 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	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	91.0%	2.3%	2.3%	2.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	91.2%	2.6%	2.4%	2.1%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	91.3%	2.8%	2.5%	1.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	92.0%	2.7%	2.2%	1.5%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	92.8%	2.5%	2.0%	1.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	92.9%	2.9%	1.9%	1.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	93.7%	2.6%	1.4%	1.1%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	93.7%	2.4%	1.2%	1.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	94.2%	2.2%	1.0%	1.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	93.6%	2.9%	1.0%	1.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	93.0%	3.3%	1.1%	1.1%	1.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	91.3%	4.6%	1.6%	1.1%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	90.9%	5.6%	1.5%	1.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	90.0%	6.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	88.7%	7.6%	1.7%	1.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	88.0%	8.4%	1.4%	1.1%	0.7%	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 2017 at 94.2%. Overall it fell from 91.0% in 2009 to 88.0% in 2024, down 3.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Brownsville: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2024, up 6.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.3% to 1.4% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Brownsville

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Brownsville?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.6%

Brownsville Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Brownsville is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Texas. Early starts are less common than in Texas: 10.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 53.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.2%) 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 Brownsville, 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 Brownsville 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 Brownsville next to Texas 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	Brownsville	Texas	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:50 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:50 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:51 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:53 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:52 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:52 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:53 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:51 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:53 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:49 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:51 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:53 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:51 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Brownsville were on the road by 7:51 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:48 AM). The shift is sharper than across Texas, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Brownsville now leave 14 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Brownsville's commute time compare?

Metric	Brownsville	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.5 min	22.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 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	8.4%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Brownsville is 20.5 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.4% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Brownsville, Texas.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Brownsville, Texas?

Commuters here spend an estimated 171 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,300 at a typical national wage. That's 10% less than the typical Texas commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Brownsville, Texas?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Brownsville, Texas. 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.