of Bay Area commuters drove to work (alone or in a carpool) in 2023
of Bay Area commuters took public transit on a typical workday in 2023
of Bay Area commuters worked from home on a typical workday in 2023
Introduction
How are Bay Area workers getting to their jobs?
No matter where a person lives, commuting can be a challenge. And no matter the location in the Bay Area, commuters have different options for getting from home to work. Some commuters walk or ride their bikes to work, others carpool across the Bay Bridge, and still others rely on transit. In recent years, these trends have been upended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in fewer commuters on the road or on transit, and more individuals working from home. The choice of how to commute – or commute “mode choice” – affects everything from traffic congestion to air pollution.
Regional Performance
Commute mode share in the Bay Area was relatively stable throughout the first part of the 21st century, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed that significantly.
Regional mode shares have shifted tremendously for Bay Area commuters during and after the pandemic. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, commuting via all travel modes dropped sharply, while working from home increased. Today, trends continue to be in a period of flux. Driving has nearly reached pre-pandemic levels; transit use is on the rise, though still around half of 2019 levels; and the number of people working from home has been decreasing since 2021.
The percentage of Bay Area commuters driving to work decreased from 73% to 59% from 2019 to 2021, but as of 2023, it was back to around 68%. Transit has faced even more dramatic shifts, falling from 13% in 2019 to 4% in 2021 and increasing to around half of pre-pandemic levels as of 2023, at 7%. Working from home showed the opposite trend, increasing from 7% in 2019 to 33% in 2021, but falling to 19% as of 2023.
of Bay Area commuters worked from home in 2019
of Bay Area commuters worked from home in 2023
Historical Trend for Commute Mode Choice
Regional Distribution
Major changes in regional mode choice have largely been driven by the shift towards working from home that started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the years leading up to the pandemic, most Bay Area counties (excluding some North Bay counties) were seeing a decrease in the share of commuters who drove to work. Some counties were even seeing an increase in the share of commuters who took transit to work. In 2019, San Francisco had the highest transit mode share, with over 36% of residents taking transit to work.
During the pandemic, the share of commuters who worked from home increased in all nine Bay Area counties. In 2021, 45% of San Francisco residents telecommuted, the highest share among all Bay Area counties. However, as of 2023, Marin led the region with 26% of their residents working from home, and San Francisco and Alameda counties following closely behind with 24% and 20% of their residents working from home, respectively. In 2023 Solano and Napa counties had the lowest percent of telecommuters, with 11% and 13%, respectively.
In 2021, 46% of commuters living in San Francisco County worked from home, the highest of all Bay Area counties
In 2023, 26% of commuters living in Marin County worked from home, the highest of all Bay Area counties
Commute Mode Choice By County of Residence
Local Focus
Active modes of transportation like walking and biking play a large role in many communities.
Active modes of transportation – transportation powered by human physical activity – provides a wide variety of benefits, such as conserving fuel, reducing vehicle emissions, bridging the first- and last-mile gap, and improving individual and public health. Top locations where residents walked to work in 2023 include San Francisco and Berkeley. Cities in Napa County and Marin County like Yountville, St. Helena and Ross are also among the top cities where residents walked to work in 2023. Top locations where residents biked to work in 2023 include cities in Silicon Valley like Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Mountain View; East Bay cities like Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville; and the Town of Fairfax in Marin County, which had 5% of its commuters biking to work in 2023.
In 2023, approximately 19% of commuters living in Yountville walked to work
In 2023, approximately 8% of commuters living in Menlo Park biked to work
Commute Mode Choice for Cities and Neighborhoods (2023)
Sources & Methodology
Commute mode choice, also known as commute mode share, refers to the mode of transportation that a commuter usually uses to travel to work, such as driving alone, biking, carpooling or taking transit. American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year data is used for larger geographies – Bay counties and most metropolitan area counties – while smaller geographies rely upon 5-year rolling average data, due to their smaller sample sizes. This will result in discrepancies in cases like San Francisco where it is both a city and a county. Note that 2020 data uses the 5-year estimates because the ACS did not collect 1-year data for 2020. Additionally, for the county by place of residence breakdown, Napa was missing ACS 1-year commute mode choice data for all modes for 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2021. 5-year estimates were used to fill the missing data for 2011 and 2021, but not 2007 or 2008 since the 5-year estimates start in 2009.
Regional mode shares are population-weighted averages of the nine counties' modal shares. "Auto" includes drive alone and carpool for the simple data tables and is broken out in the detailed data tables accordingly. "Transit" includes public operators (Muni, BART, etc.) and employer-provided shuttles (e.g., Google shuttle buses). "Other" includes motorcycle, taxi and other modes of transportation; bicycle mode share was broken out separately for the first time in the 2006 data and is shown in the detailed data tables. Census tract data is not available for tracts with insufficient numbers of residents or workers.
U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey
2006-2023
Table B08301