Rowan County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Rowan County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Rowan 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 143 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 3.6 minutes.

Rowan County holds about 0.5% of Kentucky's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Rowan County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,776 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)
Rowan County	17.2 min	34.4 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,440	679
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 Rowan County. That's 23% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 88% 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 8.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Rowan County

• Car: 83.0%
• Worked at Home: 8.5%
• Walked: 7.6% unusually high
• Other: 0.5%
• Public Transportation: 0.4%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Walking is unusually common in Rowan County: 3.8 times more than the Kentucky average (7.6% vs 2.0%).

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

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

Rowan County stands out for active commuting: 7.6% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.5 times the Kentucky average of 2.2%.

Commute Mode Trends in Rowan County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Rowan 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	86.0%	5.3%	6.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	87.4%	4.9%	6.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	88.7%	5.1%	5.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	88.9%	3.9%	5.0%	0.4%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	92.4%	3.0%	3.3%	0.3%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	93.6%	2.6%	2.6%	0.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	93.7%	2.5%	1.9%	0.2%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.9%	3.3%	1.9%	0.3%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	91.9%	3.7%	1.8%	0.9%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%
2018	90.8%	4.2%	2.1%	0.8%	1.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2019	89.9%	3.5%	3.5%	1.1%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.7%
2020	86.8%	6.2%	4.9%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.6%
2021	86.5%	5.7%	5.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2022	86.2%	6.9%	5.6%	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2023	84.2%	7.3%	6.9%	0.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2024	83.0%	8.5%	7.6%	0.5%	0.4%	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 2015 at 93.7%. Overall it fell from 86.0% in 2009 to 83.0% in 2024, down 3.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Rowan County: its share of workers rose from 5.3% in 2009 to 8.5% in 2024, up 3.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

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

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 2.3% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 0.4%.

Commute Start Times in Rowan County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Rowan County?

The bars show when commuters in Rowan 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 Rowan County2.5% Kentucky5.9%	2.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Rowan County6.8% Kentucky4.3%	6.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Rowan County5.5% Kentucky5.3%	5.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Rowan County5.8% Kentucky8.3%	5.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Rowan County9.9% Kentucky10.3%	9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Rowan County11.0% Kentucky14.8%	11.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Rowan County19.4% Kentucky12.4%	19.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Rowan County7.5% Kentucky9.6%	7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Rowan County3.1% Kentucky4.5%	3.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Rowan County5.6% Kentucky5.2%	5.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Rowan County2.5% Kentucky2.5%	2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Rowan County0.8% Kentucky1.3%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Rowan County10.3% Kentucky7.3%	10.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Rowan County9.3% Kentucky8.4%	9.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Rowan County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.4% across Kentucky. Early starts are about as common as in Kentucky: 14.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Kentucky's: 47.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.5%) 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 Rowan 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 Rowan 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 Rowan 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.

• Rowan County
• Kentucky
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Rowan County	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:55 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:46 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:55 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:01 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:03 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:55 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:54 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:50 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:46 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Rowan County were on the road by 7:43 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:55 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kentucky, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Rowan County now leave 5 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 Rowan County has moved 20 minutes earlier.

How does Rowan County's commute time compare?

Metric	Rowan 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	8.5%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	7.6%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	0.6%	3.2%

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

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 7.6% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau