Auburn Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:27 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:27 PM

Commute Time Burden in Auburn: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Auburn spend about 55 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 231 hours, about 9.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 24% more time on the road than the Washington average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 5.3 minutes.

Auburn holds about 1.0% of Washington's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Auburn would save about 92 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,860 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)
Auburn	27.7 min	55.3 min	231 hrs/yr	$7,149	3,872
Washington	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,525
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.

Auburn Commute Map

On average, it takes 27.7 minutes to get to work in Auburn. That's 23% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 14.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Auburn

Biking is unusually rare in Auburn: 21.9 times less than the Washington average (0.0% vs 0.6%).

Commute Mode Trends in Auburn, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Auburn 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	87.7%	3.8%	5.7%	1.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2010	86.8%	4.0%	5.8%	1.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%
2011	87.6%	3.6%	5.5%	1.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%
2012	87.3%	3.4%	5.7%	1.9%	0.8%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%
2013	87.7%	2.8%	5.7%	2.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%
2014	86.4%	3.1%	6.4%	2.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%
2015	86.5%	3.2%	7.1%	1.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2016	85.5%	3.6%	7.3%	1.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2017	85.3%	3.9%	7.5%	1.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	84.8%	4.4%	7.9%	1.4%	0.9%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2019	85.6%	4.3%	7.5%	1.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2020	85.4%	6.2%	6.0%	1.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	83.7%	9.0%	5.2%	1.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	82.7%	10.5%	4.4%	1.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	81.1%	12.7%	3.3%	1.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	80.1%	14.3%	2.6%	1.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 87.7% in 2009 to 80.1% in 2024, down 7.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Auburn: its share of workers rose from 3.8% in 2009 to 14.3% in 2024, up 10.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 10.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 5.7% to 2.6% of workers (down 3.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Auburn

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Auburn?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		8.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		7.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		13.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		7.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.8%

Auburn Washington Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Auburn is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 13.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.6% across Washington. Early starts are more common than in Washington: 23.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Washington: 34.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.0%) 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 Auburn, 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 Auburn 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 Auburn next to Washington 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	Auburn	Washington	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:21 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:21 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:14 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:13 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:14 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Auburn were on the road by 7:12 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:16 AM). That goes against the trend across Washington, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Auburn now leave 26 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Auburn has moved 5 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Auburn in the whole series.

How does Auburn's commute time compare?

Metric	Auburn	Washington	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.7 min	22.4 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	14.3%	19.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	3.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.6%	3.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Auburn is 27.7 minutes, longer than the 22.4 minutes in Washington.

2.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.4% in Washington. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 3.0% in Washington.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Auburn, Washington.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Auburn, Washington?

Commuters here spend an estimated 231 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,149 at a typical national wage. That's 24% more than the typical Washington commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Auburn, Washington?

Traffic peaks between 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM in Auburn, Washington. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.