Marion County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Marion County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Marion 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 144 hours, about 6.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 17% less time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.5 minutes.

Marion County holds about 0.4% of Kentucky's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Marion County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,781 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)
Marion County	17.2 min	34.5 min	144 hrs/yr	$4,452	718
Kentucky	20.8 min	41.6 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,369	832
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: Kentucky Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.2 minutes to get to work in Marion County. That's 23% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 87% of counties in Kentucky

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 3.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Marion County

• Car: 95.1%
• Worked at Home: 3.1% unusually low
• Other: 1.1%
• Taxi: 0.6% unusually high
• Walked: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Marion County, versus 0.1% in Kentucky.

Walking is unusually rare in Marion County: 9.6 times less than the Kentucky average (0.2% vs 2.0%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Marion County, versus 0.6% in Kentucky.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Marion County: 4.0 times more than the Kentucky average (0.6% vs 0.1%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Marion County: 3.3 times less than the Kentucky average (3.1% vs 10.2%).

Biking is essentially absent in Marion County, versus 0.2% in Kentucky.

Few people walk or bike to work in Marion County: just 0.2%, 10.5 times below the Kentucky average of 2.2%.

Commute Mode Trends in Marion County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Marion 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
• Other
• Taxi
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Taxi	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	95.7%	1.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	95.2%	2.1%	1.4%	0.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	95.0%	2.1%	0.9%	0.0%	1.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	93.3%	2.9%	1.1%	0.6%	1.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	92.8%	2.9%	1.0%	0.8%	2.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	92.4%	3.6%	0.5%	0.8%	2.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	91.3%	3.8%	0.0%	0.8%	3.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.9%	3.6%	0.2%	0.7%	3.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	91.9%	4.0%	0.6%	0.0%	3.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	91.0%	4.7%	0.8%	0.0%	3.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.7%	4.0%	0.8%	0.0%	2.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.0%	3.5%	0.9%	0.9%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	93.4%	3.7%	0.9%	0.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	94.0%	3.5%	1.0%	0.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	94.9%	2.9%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	95.1%	3.1%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%	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 bottomed out in 2018 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 95.7% in 2009 to 95.1% in 2024, down 0.6 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Marion County: its share of workers rose from 1.8% in 2009 to 3.1% in 2024, up 1.3 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 0.8% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Taking a taxi overtook public transit to become the 4th most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 4.7% in 2018 and has since fallen back to 3.1%.

Commute Start Times in Marion County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Marion County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Marion County9.4% Kentucky5.9%	9.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Marion County4.5% Kentucky4.3%	4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Marion County7.8% Kentucky5.3%	7.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Marion County7.8% Kentucky8.3%	7.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Marion County12.1% Kentucky10.3%	12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Marion County13.2% Kentucky14.8%	13.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Marion County14.5% Kentucky12.4%	14.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Marion County6.2% Kentucky9.6%	6.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Marion County2.7% Kentucky4.5%	2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Marion County3.1% Kentucky5.2%	3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Marion County1.1% Kentucky2.5%	1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Marion County0.2% Kentucky1.3%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Marion County12.4% Kentucky7.3%	12.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Marion County4.9% Kentucky8.4%	4.9%

Marion County Kentucky Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Marion County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.4% across Kentucky. Early starts are more common than in Kentucky: 21.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Kentucky's: 46.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.7%) 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 Marion 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 Marion 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 Marion County next to Kentucky 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.

• Marion County
• Kentucky
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Marion County	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:35 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Marion County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 13 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:33 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kentucky, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Marion County now leave 19 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 Marion County has moved 11 minutes earlier.

How does Marion County's commute time compare?

Metric	Marion County	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.2 min	20.8 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	3.1%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	0.2%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Marion County is 17.2 minutes, shorter than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 0.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau