Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 140 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 9% less time on the road than the Arkansas average of 18.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.7 minutes.

Union County holds about 1.2% of Arkansas's population but accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,742 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)
Union County	16.9 min	33.7 min	140 hrs/yr	$4,355	421
Arkansas	18.6 min	37.2 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,807	912
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.

Commute Time Map: Arkansas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 16.9 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 25% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Arkansas

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

• Car: 91.6%
• Worked at Home: 6.9%
• Walked: 1.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.1%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Other: < 0.1%

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Union County: 8.3 times less than the Arkansas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.1% in Arkansas.

Biking is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.2% in Arkansas.

Commute Mode Trends in Union County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Union County 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Other

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Other
2009	92.6%	2.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	4.2%
2010	93.6%	1.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	3.5%
2011	93.5%	1.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	3.8%
2012	94.3%	1.4%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	2.4%
2013	94.5%	1.2%	1.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	2.2%
2014	95.4%	1.2%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	1.4%
2015	96.4%	0.9%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%
2016	96.2%	1.3%	1.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	96.8%	1.7%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	97.4%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	96.0%	1.3%	1.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2020	95.0%	2.4%	1.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	93.7%	3.4%	2.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2022	92.4%	5.3%	1.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	91.8%	6.1%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2024	91.6%	6.9%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2018 at 97.4%. Overall it fell from 92.6% in 2009 to 91.6% in 2024, down 1.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 6.9% in 2024, up 4.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Union County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Union County?

The bars show when commuters in Union County 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 Arkansas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Union County5.2% Arkansas5.6%	5.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Union County4.1% Arkansas4.1%	4.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Union County10.1% Arkansas5.2%	10.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Union County13.0% Arkansas9.3%	13.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Union County11.4% Arkansas11.2%	11.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Union County15.9% Arkansas17.5%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Union County13.1% Arkansas13.9%	13.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Union County8.6% Arkansas9.2%	8.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Union County3.0% Arkansas3.6%	3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Union County4.1% Arkansas4.5%	4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Union County2.6% Arkansas2.2%	2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Union County1.4% Arkansas1.1%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Union County3.7% Arkansas6.2%	3.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Union County3.7% Arkansas6.4%	3.7%

Union County Arkansas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Union County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 17.5% across Arkansas. Early starts are more common than in Arkansas: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Arkansas: 49.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.9% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (15.6%) 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 Union County, 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 Union County 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 Union County next to Arkansas 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.

• Union County
• Arkansas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Union County	Arkansas	United States
2009	7:30 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:28 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:28 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:17 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:15 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:13 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:14 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:25 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:12 AM, 18 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:30 AM). The shift is sharper than across Arkansas, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Union County now leave 26 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Union County has moved 8 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Union County in the whole series.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	Arkansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.9 min	18.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.9%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	1.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is 16.9 minutes, shorter than the 18.6 minutes in Arkansas.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in Arkansas. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Arkansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau