Mapping the Average Commute from Every Part of the Bay Area

WNYC produced an interactive map of commute times across the US, based on data from the Census Bureau. From the looks of the map, people in Daly City have an easier time getting to work than anyone living in the Outer Sunset or near Lake Merced, and South San Francisco looks like a (relative) paradise, with an average commute time of 23.7 minutes—just a hair under the nationwide average of 25.4 minutes. Meanwhile, living anywhere near Moraga or San Ramon looks like an absolute mess.

At first glance, much of San Francisco seems to be doing pretty well. The darker the pink, the worse the commute, and the purply spots are pretty much where you'd expect: the Outer Sunset, Outer Richmond, anywhere near Lake Merced, Mission Bay. All of them landed in the 31-32-minute zone, which seems more like the minimum time it takes to get anywhere in this city, and not the possible max. Because the data is sorted by Zip Code, it averages together commute times from adjacent neighborhoods, and as a result the Outer Sunset looks about on par with the Castro. This can't be right, can it? In any case, see how your commute stacks up with the map below.

· Average Commute Times [WNYC]