The 10 Cities With the Longest Commutes

It’s been a few years since the COVID-19 pandemic turned literally everything upside down—but according to an analysis by the coworking management platform Yardi Kube, American commuting habits are slowly moving back to where they were before: U.S. census data indicates a country returning to its old ways, albeit with a few notable changes.

1. The 10 U.S. Cities with the Longest Average Commutes (One-Way) in 2023
2. The 10 U.S. Cities with the Shortest Average Commutes (One-Way) in 2023

In 2023, the average one-way trip to work was 26.8 minutes—shorter than the 27.6 minutes it took in 2019, but slightly longer than in 2022. The shift suggests that more people are moving away from entirely remote work to a hybrid model, filling roads and trains as they once again head back to the office.

In 2021, a substantial share of the workforce—approximately 18 percent, or more than 27 million people—worked from home. That cut average commute times to just 25.6 minutes, the shortest in more than a decade. But the trend didn’t last. By 2022, the number of remote workers had dropped by 3 million, and the average commute time rose to 26.4 minutes. The decline continued into 2023, when only 13.8 percent of workers remained remote. Commute times crept higher again as more employees returned to traditional offices.

What stands out most is the pace of change. From 2011 to 2019, commutes rose by only two minutes over nearly a decade. But since 2021, they’ve jumped more than a minute in just two years—the equivalent of five years’ growth into a fraction of the time. That acceleration demonstrates how closely commuting patterns align with workplace policies and how rapidly routines can shift when millions of people adjust their schedules simultaneously.

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The pace of life isn’t the same everywhere. In cities like New York and Chicago, long commutes remain a daily reality. In smaller Midwestern and Southern metros, trips can still be under 20 minutes. For workers in the most congested regions, though, commuting is already back to its pre-pandemic grind.

Below are the 10 cities where people spend the longest and shortest times getting to work.

The 10 U.S. Cities with the Longest Average Commutes (One-Way) in 2023

1. New York, New York: 40.1 minutes
2. Chicago, Illinois: 33.0 minutes
3. Los Angeles, California: 31.4 minutes
4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 31.1 minutes
5. San Francisco, California: 30.9 minutes
6. Long Beach, California: 30.4 minutes
7. Washington, D.C.: 30.4 minutes
8. Boston, Massachusetts: 30.2 minutes
9. Oakland, California: 29.9 minutes
10. Baltimore, Maryland: 28.5 minutes

The 10 U.S. Cities with the Shortest Average Commutes (One-Way) in 2023

1. Tulsa, Oklahoma: 19.1 minutes
2. Witchita, Kansas: 19.3 minutes
3. Omaha, Nebraska: 20.0 minutes
4. Memphis, Tennessee: 20.9 minutes
5. Minneapolis, Minnesota: 21.0 minutes
6. Columbus, Ohio: 21.1 minutes
7. Kansas City, Missouri: 22.1 minutes
8. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 22.1 minutes
9. Tucson, Arizona: 22.1 minutes
10. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 22.2 minutes