Search map: California commutes among longest in nation. How does your area rank?

The second worst commute time in America was in Merced, California, where commuters spent around 35 minutes getting to work.

Everyone who commutes to work in California knows that it fells like it takes forever to get to the office. And even though average commute times dipped by several minutes with the remote-work revolution during the COVID-19 pandemic, getting to work still feel like an arduous ordeal. But how long does it take really, and are our commute times in California really so bad compared to the rest of the nation?

As it turns out, many California metro areas report among the longest commute times in America.

The absolute worst commute time anywhere in America was in the quiet Pennsylvania metro area of East Stroudsburg, where commuters spent upwards of 38 minutes each way commuting mainly to New York City in 2021. But the second worst commute time was in Merced, California, where commuters spent around 35 minutes getting to work, with thousands commuting to neighboring Santa Clara and Stanislaus counties. Stockton-Lodi came in fourth, with a 34-minute average commute time with many commuters venturing to both Sacramento and the Bay Area.

And what about that age old question — who has a worse commute, Los Angeles or the Bay Area?  Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario came in fifth at 32 minutes, with many commuters flocking to Los Angeles and Orange County. The Bay Area metro area of Vallejo-Fairfield came in seventh, averaging around 31 minutes. And in terms of the major cities, the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area (rank 14) slightly beat out the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area (rank 20), but both had average commute times of around 29 minutes.

In many of California’s urban hubs, average commute times declined dramatically after 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work. The map below shows how average commute times shifted across California from 2019 to 2021. How has your area changed, and what is your commute time now? Search below to find out.