Metcalfe County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Metcalfe County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Metcalfe County spend about 48 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 199 hours, about 8.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 15% more time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Metcalfe County holds about 0.2% of Kentucky's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Metcalfe County would save about 80 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,465 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)
Metcalfe County	23.9 min	47.7 min	199 hrs/yr	$6,163	270
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 23.9 minutes to get to work in Metcalfe County. That's 6% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Metcalfe County

• Car: 90.3%
• Worked at Home: 8.3%
• Walked: 1.4%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Other: < 0.1%

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

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

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Metcalfe County, versus 0.1% in Kentucky.

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

Commute Mode Trends in Metcalfe County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Metcalfe 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	90.9%	5.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	1.9%
2010	92.4%	5.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	1.4%
2011	93.6%	4.1%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2012	92.9%	4.7%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2013	91.9%	5.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%
2014	91.2%	6.9%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	90.9%	7.0%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2016	90.8%	7.2%	1.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2017	92.1%	6.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2018	93.5%	5.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2019	95.6%	3.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%
2020	96.8%	1.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2021	94.4%	4.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2022	92.2%	5.6%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%
2023	91.2%	6.7%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%
2024	90.3%	8.3%	1.4%	0.0%	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 2020 at 96.8%. Overall it fell from 90.9% in 2009 to 90.3% in 2024, down 0.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Metcalfe County: its share of workers rose from 5.9% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Metcalfe County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Metcalfe County?

The bars show when commuters in Metcalfe 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 Metcalfe County13.0% Kentucky5.9%	13.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Metcalfe County2.4% Kentucky4.3%	2.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Metcalfe County4.5% Kentucky5.3%	4.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Metcalfe County17.7% Kentucky8.3%	17.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Metcalfe County9.9% Kentucky10.3%	9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Metcalfe County16.7% Kentucky14.8%	16.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Metcalfe County5.4% Kentucky12.4%	5.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Metcalfe County9.1% Kentucky9.6%	9.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Metcalfe County1.0% Kentucky4.5%	1.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Metcalfe County4.0% Kentucky5.2%	4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Metcalfe County1.4% Kentucky2.5%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Metcalfe County0.0% Kentucky1.3%	0.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Metcalfe County6.8% Kentucky7.3%	6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Metcalfe County8.1% Kentucky8.4%	8.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Metcalfe County is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 17.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.3% across Kentucky. Early starts are more common than in Kentucky: 19.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Kentucky: 41.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.2%) 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 Metcalfe 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 Metcalfe 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 Metcalfe 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.

• Metcalfe County
• Kentucky
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Metcalfe County	Kentucky	United States
2009	6:58 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	6:55 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	6:54 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	6:57 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:00 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:02 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:06 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:01 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	6:55 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	6:50 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	6:49 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	6:54 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	6:56 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:05 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:10 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:04 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Metcalfe County were on the road by 7:04 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (6:58 AM). That goes against the trend across Kentucky, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Metcalfe County now leave 33 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 Metcalfe County has moved 16 minutes later.

How does Metcalfe County's commute time compare?

Metric	Metcalfe County	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.9 min	20.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 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	8.3%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Metcalfe County is 23.9 minutes, longer than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 1.4% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau