Spencer County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Spencer County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Spencer County spend about 67 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 277 hours, about 11.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 60% more time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 12.5 minutes.

Spencer County holds about 0.4% of Kentucky's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Spencer County would save about 111 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,439 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)
Spencer County	33.3 min	66.6 min	277 hrs/yr	$8,596	969
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 33.3 minutes to get to work in Spencer County. That's 48% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the 3 slowest counties in Kentucky

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Spencer County

• Car: 84.7%
• Worked at Home: 13.3%
• Other: 0.8%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Spencer County: 3.9 times less than the Kentucky average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Spencer County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	93.7%	3.1%	2.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	94.5%	3.6%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	93.5%	3.8%	1.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	95.1%	2.8%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	96.5%	2.1%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	96.5%	1.6%	0.4%	1.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	96.0%	1.9%	0.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	95.5%	2.1%	0.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	95.2%	2.4%	0.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	94.3%	3.0%	0.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	94.7%	3.2%	0.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	91.8%	6.7%	0.5%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.3%	7.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.2%	9.0%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.5%	10.5%	0.7%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.7%	13.3%	0.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	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 2013 at 96.5%. Overall it fell from 93.7% in 2009 to 84.7% in 2024, down 9.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Spencer County: its share of workers rose from 3.1% in 2009 to 13.3% in 2024, up 10.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 10.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.3% to 0.8% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Spencer County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Spencer County?

The bars show when commuters in Spencer 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 Spencer County6.8% Kentucky5.9%	6.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Spencer County3.8% Kentucky4.3%	3.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Spencer County5.8% Kentucky5.3%	5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Spencer County10.1% Kentucky8.3%	10.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Spencer County12.1% Kentucky10.3%	12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Spencer County16.3% Kentucky14.8%	16.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Spencer County9.2% Kentucky12.4%	9.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Spencer County13.2% Kentucky9.6%	13.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Spencer County2.7% Kentucky4.5%	2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Spencer County3.0% Kentucky5.2%	3.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Spencer County0.6% Kentucky2.5%	0.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Spencer County1.4% Kentucky1.3%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Spencer County8.5% Kentucky7.3%	8.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Spencer County6.7% Kentucky8.4%	6.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Spencer County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Kentucky. Early starts are about as common as in Kentucky: 16.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kentucky: 50.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.1%) 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 Spencer 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 Spencer 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 Spencer 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.

• Spencer County
• Kentucky
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Spencer County	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:05 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:02 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:03 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:05 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:07 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:10 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:05 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:10 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Spencer County were on the road by 7:21 AM, 1 minute earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). Kentucky followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Spencer County now leave 17 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 Spencer County has moved 9 minutes later.

How does Spencer County's commute time compare?

Metric	Spencer County	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	33.3 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.3%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Spencer County is 33.3 minutes, longer than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau