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How early is your commute? In these 10 cities, many are out the door by 5 a.m.

Here are the cities with the earliest-- and latest-- commutes.
Early morning commuters leave for work before the sun is up as more commuters try to get a jump on the morning rush. (Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)

If you commute in one of these cities, hope you like coffee.

A study found that these 10 metro areas on average had the highest percentage of commuters leaving before 5 a.m. among the top 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas (as defined by the Office of Management and Budget):

  1. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.: 9.9%
  2. Phoenix: 7.1%
  3. Las Vegas: 6.9%
  4. San Juan, Puerto Rico: 6.2%
  5. Seattle: 5.3%
  6. New Orleans: 5.2%
  7. Los Angeles: 4.9%
  8. Birmingham, Ala.: 4.8%
  9. Chicago: 4.6%
  10. Houston: 4.5%

Roughly 1 in 10 commuters in Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. (east of L.A.), leave before 5 a.m.

The study — conducted by Best Mattress Brand, which researches and reviews mattress brands and sleep issues — used data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey between 2009 and 2015 to determine which metro areas have the most commuters leaving before 5 a.m. to go to work and the most leaving after 9 a.m.

A month of your life

"Over the course of an entire year, Americans who spend 26 minutes (the national average) driving to and from work give up nine full days to their commute," the author of the study Matt Meadows wrote in the report. "For the millions who commute 90 minutes each way, more than a month each year is committed to the time just getting to the office."

Many workers, especially in large cities, have commutes that are 30 minutes or longer one-way. The average commute time has been steadily creeping higher this decade, according to 2016 data from the Census Bureau.

Longer commutes may be one reason some people are leaving for work earlier or, conversely, waiting for peak traffic to pass and leaving later.

These cities are the large metro areas that have the highest percentage of commuters leaving after 9 a.m.:

  1. Las Vegas: 33.4%
  2. San Jose, Calif.: 29.4%
  3. Detroit: 27.3%
  4. Miami: 27.1%
  5. San Francisco: 26.9%
  6. Los Angeles: 26.7%
  7. Orlando: 26.7%
  8. Louisville: 26.5%
  9. Buffalo, N.Y.: 26.1%
  10. Cleveland: 26.0%

The study also looked at a larger sampling of cities across the country as it analyzed 382 metropolitan statistical areas and 551 micropolitan statistical areas, as defined by OMB.

Taking the top spot among the early commuters among this larger sample was Elkhart-Goshen, Ind., with 13.3% of its commuters on average leaving before 5 a.m. The top area for later commuters was Atlantic City, N.J., with 35.8% of its commuters leaving after 9 a.m.

Before You Leave, Check This Out