Manhattan Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:59 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Manhattan?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:59 PM

Commute Time Burden in Manhattan: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Manhattan spend about 25 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 102 hours, about 4.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 29% less time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 5.0 minutes.

Manhattan holds about 1.3% of Kansas's population but accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Manhattan would save about 41 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,266 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)
Manhattan	12.3 min	24.5 min	102 hrs/yr	$3,165	1,986
Kansas	17.2 min	34.4 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,448	662
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.

Manhattan Commute Map

On average, it takes 12.3 minutes to get to work in Manhattan. That's 45% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Manhattan

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Manhattan: 3.0 times more than the Kansas average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Walking is unusually common in Manhattan: 3.5 times more than the Kansas average (8.2% vs 2.3%).

Manhattan stands out for active commuting: 9.0% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.5 times the Kansas average of 2.6%.

Commute Mode Trends in Manhattan, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Manhattan 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	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Public Transportation
2009	74.5%	5.7%	17.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	74.2%	6.4%	17.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	75.1%	7.6%	15.2%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2012	75.5%	7.4%	15.0%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2013	76.2%	8.1%	13.1%	1.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	76.9%	6.2%	13.9%	2.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2015	77.2%	5.2%	13.8%	2.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%
2016	77.9%	4.6%	13.8%	2.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	78.9%	4.6%	12.5%	2.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2018	77.8%	4.6%	13.5%	2.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2019	77.6%	5.5%	12.4%	3.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2020	76.9%	8.4%	11.1%	2.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	75.4%	10.9%	10.5%	2.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2022	75.6%	12.2%	8.9%	1.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2023	76.4%	13.0%	7.8%	1.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2024	75.7%	13.4%	8.2%	0.8%	0.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2017 at 78.9% and lowest in 2010 at 74.2%. Overall it rose from 74.5% in 2009 to 75.7% in 2024, up 1.2 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Manhattan: its share of workers rose from 5.7% in 2009 to 13.4% in 2024, up 7.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 17.9% to 8.2% of workers (down 9.7 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Biking peaked at 3.4% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 0.8%.

Commute Start Times in Manhattan

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Manhattan?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		3.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		2.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		8.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		19.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		13.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.7%

Manhattan Kansas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Manhattan is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Kansas. Early starts are less common than in Kansas: 9.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Kansas: 46.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (34.5%) 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 Manhattan, 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 Manhattan 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 Manhattan next to Kansas 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	Manhattan	Kansas	United States
2009	8:19 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:07 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:03 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:07 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:03 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:03 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:59 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:58 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:59 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:06 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Manhattan were on the road by 8:06 AM, 14 minutes earlier than in 2009 (8:19 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kansas, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Manhattan now leave 28 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 Manhattan has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Manhattan's commute time compare?

Metric	Manhattan	Kansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.3 min	17.2 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.4%	11.8%	15.0%
Walked	8.2%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Manhattan is 12.3 minutes, shorter than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Kansas. 8.2% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Kansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Manhattan, Kansas.

Is commuting expensive in Manhattan, Kansas?

Commuters here spend an estimated 102 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,165 at a typical national wage. That's 29% less than the typical Kansas commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Manhattan, Kansas?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Manhattan, Kansas. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM also sees a secondary bump.