Dalton Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:53 PM

Is the commute in Dalton longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:53 PM

Commute Time Burden in Dalton: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dalton spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 148 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the Georgia average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.9 minutes.

Dalton holds about 0.3% of Georgia's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dalton would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,833 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)
Dalton	17.7 min	35.5 min	148 hrs/yr	$4,583	2,859
Georgia	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,109	1,447
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.

Dalton Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Dalton. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 4.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dalton

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Dalton, versus 0.1% in Georgia.

Public transit is unusually rare in Dalton: 6.6 times less than the Georgia average (0.2% vs 1.1%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Dalton: 3.8 times less than the Georgia average (4.2% vs 15.9%).

Biking is essentially absent in Dalton, versus 0.2% in Georgia.

Commute Mode Trends in Dalton, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Dalton 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	Walked	Other	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.6%	0.7%	1.8%	2.5%	1.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	92.9%	1.1%	1.1%	2.8%	1.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2011	92.0%	1.4%	1.2%	2.8%	1.0%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	93.1%	1.1%	1.3%	1.9%	1.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	91.3%	2.5%	1.2%	2.1%	1.4%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	91.6%	2.5%	1.5%	1.6%	1.3%	1.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	92.0%	2.1%	2.4%	1.1%	1.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.4%
2016	92.4%	2.2%	2.1%	1.0%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	93.7%	1.8%	2.0%	0.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%
2018	95.1%	1.6%	1.6%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2019	95.2%	1.6%	1.2%	0.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	95.4%	1.9%	0.8%	0.4%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	95.0%	2.3%	1.3%	0.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	94.0%	3.7%	1.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	93.8%	4.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	93.3%	4.2%	0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	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 2020 at 95.4% and lowest in 2013 at 91.3%. Overall it rose from 92.6% in 2009 to 93.3% in 2024, up 0.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Dalton: its share of workers rose from 0.7% in 2009 to 4.2% in 2024, up 3.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Taking a taxi lost the most ground, falling from 1.8% to 0.7% of workers (down 1.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2019 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 1.3% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 0.2%.

Commute Start Times in Dalton

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dalton?

The bars show when commuters in Dalton 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 Georgia for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		3.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		10.8%

Dalton Georgia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Dalton is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.9% across Georgia. Early starts are less common than in Georgia: 9.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Georgia: 50.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.1%) 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 Dalton, 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 Dalton 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 Dalton next to Georgia 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	Dalton	Georgia	United States
2009	7:54 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:56 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:55 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:51 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dalton were on the road by 7:31 AM, 23 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:54 AM). Across Georgia, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Dalton now leave 6 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Dalton's commute time compare?

Metric	Dalton	Georgia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 min	23.6 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.2%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dalton is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Georgia.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Georgia. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.3% in Georgia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Dalton, Georgia.

Is living in Dalton, Georgia good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 148 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,583 at a typical national wage. That's 25% less than the typical Georgia commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Dalton, Georgia?

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

How common is public transit use in Dalton, Georgia?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 1.1% in Georgia, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.