Paducah Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 1:12 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Paducah?

Map AI 9/24/26, 1:12 PM

Commute Time Burden in Paducah: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Paducah spend about 26 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 106 hours, about 4.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 39% less time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 8.0 minutes.

Paducah holds about 0.5% of Kentucky's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Paducah would save about 43 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,320 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)
Paducah	12.8 min	25.5 min	106 hrs/yr	$3,300	1,866
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.

Paducah Commute Map

On average, it takes 12.8 minutes to get to work in Paducah. That's 43% 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 6.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Paducah

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

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Paducah: 5.0 times more than the Kentucky average (0.7% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Paducah: 5.1 times more than the Kentucky average (1.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Paducah, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Paducah 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	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	92.4%	2.9%	1.7%	1.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.7%
2010	92.1%	2.8%	1.8%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.7%	0.7%
2011	92.6%	2.7%	1.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.7%	0.6%
2012	94.0%	1.6%	2.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%
2013	94.0%	1.7%	2.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%
2014	93.5%	2.4%	2.1%	0.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	93.3%	2.3%	2.0%	0.3%	1.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	90.8%	3.3%	2.6%	0.7%	2.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	91.3%	2.7%	3.1%	0.8%	1.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.1%	2.2%	3.0%	0.6%	1.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	91.9%	3.0%	2.4%	0.6%	1.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	90.1%	4.1%	3.0%	0.7%	1.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
2021	91.7%	4.1%	2.2%	0.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%
2022	89.2%	4.7%	3.0%	0.5%	0.9%	0.2%	1.2%	0.3%
2023	88.1%	5.7%	2.5%	1.0%	1.1%	0.4%	0.8%	0.3%
2024	85.4%	6.6%	4.0%	1.3%	1.1%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 94.0%. Overall it fell from 92.4% in 2009 to 85.4% in 2024, down 7.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Paducah: its share of workers rose from 2.9% in 2009 to 6.6% in 2024, up 3.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Riding a motorcycle lost the most ground, falling from 0.7% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Biking overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 6th most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Paducah

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Paducah?

The bars show when commuters in Paducah 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		3.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.6%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		11.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Paducah is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Kentucky. Early starts are less common than in Kentucky: 10.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kentucky: 50.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (29.6%) 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 Paducah, 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 Paducah 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 Paducah 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Paducah	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:51 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:47 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:48 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:49 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:45 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Paducah were on the road by 7:44 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:48 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kentucky, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Paducah now leave 6 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 Paducah has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Paducah's commute time compare?

Metric	Paducah	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.8 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.6%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	4.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Paducah is 12.8 minutes, shorter than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

1.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 4.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Paducah, Kentucky.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Paducah, Kentucky?

Commuters here spend an estimated 106 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,300 at a typical national wage. That's 39% less than the typical Kentucky commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Paducah, Kentucky?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Paducah, Kentucky. 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.