Monroe County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Monroe County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Monroe 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 141 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.8 minutes.

Monroe County holds about 0.2% of Kentucky's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Monroe County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,753 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)
Monroe County	17.0 min	33.9 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,383	375
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 17.0 minutes to get to work in Monroe County. That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 90% of counties in Kentucky

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 4.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Monroe County

• Car: 92.9%
• Worked at Home: 4.5%
• Walked: 1.8%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Monroe County: 14.9 times less than the Kentucky average (0.0% vs 0.6%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Monroe County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.1%	4.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	92.9%	6.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	91.4%	6.7%	1.0%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	91.8%	6.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	91.2%	7.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	90.8%	7.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	90.8%	6.7%	1.2%	0.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.8%	6.1%	1.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	92.0%	5.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	90.7%	6.3%	2.0%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	90.5%	5.7%	2.7%	0.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	91.8%	4.6%	2.7%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.6%	4.9%	2.0%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.5%	4.7%	1.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	92.2%	5.3%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	92.9%	4.5%	1.8%	0.7%	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 bottomed out in 2019 at 90.5%. Overall it fell from 94.1% in 2009 to 92.9% in 2024, down 1.2 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Walking gained the most ground in Monroe County: its share of workers rose from 0.8% in 2009 to 1.8% in 2024, up 1.0 percentage points.

Working from home peaked at 7.4% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 4.5%.

Commute Start Times in Monroe County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Monroe County?

The bars show when commuters in Monroe 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 Monroe County11.5% Kentucky5.9%	11.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Monroe County3.5% Kentucky4.3%	3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Monroe County5.4% Kentucky5.3%	5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Monroe County14.2% Kentucky8.3%	14.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Monroe County14.9% Kentucky10.3%	14.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Monroe County20.1% Kentucky14.8%	20.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Monroe County8.6% Kentucky12.4%	8.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Monroe County6.7% Kentucky9.6%	6.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Monroe County1.0% Kentucky4.5%	1.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Monroe County1.3% Kentucky5.2%	1.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Monroe County1.0% Kentucky2.5%	1.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Monroe County1.6% Kentucky1.3%	1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Monroe County5.8% Kentucky7.3%	5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Monroe County4.2% Kentucky8.4%	4.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Monroe County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 20.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Kentucky. Early starts are more common than in Kentucky: 20.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kentucky: 50.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (13.9%) 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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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 Monroe 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.

• Monroe County
• Kentucky
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Monroe County	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:00 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	6:59 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:00 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	6:56 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	6:55 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	6:52 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	6:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	6:53 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	6:50 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	6:46 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	6:48 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	6:50 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	6:54 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	6:52 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	6:57 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:01 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Monroe County were on the road by 7:01 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:00 AM). That goes against the trend across Kentucky, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Monroe County now leave 37 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 Monroe County has moved 13 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Monroe County in the whole series.

How does Monroe County's commute time compare?

Metric	Monroe County	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.0 min	20.8 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.5%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Monroe County is 17.0 minutes, shorter than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau