Phenix City Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Phenix City, Alabama: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 3:33 PM

Is the commute in Phenix City longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:33 PM

Commute Time Burden in Phenix City: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Phenix City spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

Phenix City holds about 0.6% of Alabama's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Phenix City would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,166 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Phenix City	21.0 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,416	2,633
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Phenix City Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.0 minutes to get to work in Phenix City. That's 6% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Phenix City

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Phenix City, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Phenix City: 13.7 times more than the Alabama average (1.2% vs 0.1%).

Biking is essentially absent in Phenix City, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Commute Mode Trends in Phenix City, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Phenix City get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Taxi	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.0%	2.7%	1.0%	0.2%	1.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	93.9%	2.3%	1.7%	0.1%	1.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	93.5%	2.1%	1.6%	0.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.6%
2012	94.1%	1.3%	1.7%	0.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%
2013	95.1%	1.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.7%	0.6%
2014	95.1%	1.7%	0.6%	0.3%	1.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%
2015	95.2%	2.1%	0.3%	0.4%	1.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.5%
2016	95.9%	2.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	95.4%	2.3%	0.4%	0.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	95.6%	2.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	93.9%	2.7%	0.3%	0.0%	1.6%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	91.9%	5.2%	0.2%	0.2%	1.0%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	91.4%	5.5%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	1.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	89.4%	6.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.2%	8.4%	0.7%	0.7%	1.2%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.4%	9.4%	1.2%	0.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2016 at 95.9% and lowest in 2023 at 87.2%. Overall it fell from 94.0% in 2009 to 87.4% in 2024, down 6.6 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Phenix City: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 9.4% in 2024, up 6.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.1% to 0.6% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Taking a taxi overtook walking to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2024 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Phenix City

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Phenix City?

The bars show when commuters in Phenix City leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Alabama for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.9%

Phenix City Alabama Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Phenix City is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Alabama. Early starts are less common than in Alabama: 14.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Alabama's: 49.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.1%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Phenix City, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Phenix City Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Phenix City next to Alabama and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Phenix City	Alabama	United States
2009	7:40 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:42 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:42 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:40 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:36 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:41 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:38 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:45 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Phenix City were on the road by 7:40 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Phenix City now leave 2 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Phenix City has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Phenix City's commute time compare?

Metric	Phenix City	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 min	22.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.4%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.9%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Phenix City is 21.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Alabama. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Phenix City, AL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Phenix City, AL compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Phenix City, AL	31,007	21.0 min #2/2	9.4% #2/2	7:40 AM #1/2
Columbus, GA	203,480	18.0 min	12.1%	7:46 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Phenix City, Alabama.

Is living in Phenix City, Alabama good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 175 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,416 at a typical national wage. That's 5% less than the typical Alabama commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Phenix City, Alabama?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Phenix City, Alabama. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.