Kent County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Kent County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Kent County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 168 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 29% less time on the road than the Maryland average of 28.3 minutes each way, a difference of 8.1 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Kent County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,081 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)
Kent County	20.1 min	40.3 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,203	908
Maryland	28.3 min	56.5 min	236 hrs/yr	$7,301	2,353
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: Maryland Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 20.1 minutes to get to work in Kent County. That's 10% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 78% of counties in Maryland

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Kent County

• Car: 76.5%
• Worked at Home: 11.8%
• Walked: 10.3% unusually high
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Kent County: 3.2 times less than the Maryland average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Walking is unusually common in Kent County: 5.1 times more than the Maryland average (10.3% vs 2.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Kent County: 9.7 times less than the Maryland average (0.4% vs 4.2%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Kent County, versus 0.5% in Maryland.

Biking is unusually rare in Kent County: 4.2 times less than the Maryland average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Kent County stands out for active commuting: 10.3% of workers walk or bike to work, 4.5 times the Maryland average of 2.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Kent County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Kent 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	78.7%	9.2%	8.0%	1.9%	1.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	76.6%	9.6%	8.6%	1.9%	2.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	79.0%	7.9%	7.3%	1.8%	3.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	80.4%	8.3%	6.4%	0.7%	2.4%	1.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2013	79.6%	9.0%	7.3%	0.7%	1.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2014	81.7%	7.9%	6.5%	0.7%	2.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	80.6%	8.6%	7.0%	0.8%	1.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.4%
2016	76.8%	9.1%	10.5%	0.8%	1.6%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	75.6%	11.0%	10.0%	0.8%	1.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	76.8%	11.1%	9.3%	1.0%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	77.6%	10.0%	9.4%	0.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	80.5%	9.9%	7.1%	1.0%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	81.3%	10.3%	5.6%	0.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	78.8%	9.0%	8.6%	2.0%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	78.3%	10.3%	8.8%	1.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	76.5%	11.8%	10.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2014 at 81.7% and lowest in 2017 at 75.6%. Overall it fell from 78.7% in 2009 to 76.5% in 2024, down 2.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Kent County: its share of workers rose from 9.2% in 2009 to 11.8% in 2024, up 2.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.8% to 0.4% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Kent County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Kent County?

The bars show when commuters in Kent 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 Maryland for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Kent County3.5% Maryland5.5%	3.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Kent County3.6% Maryland4.5%	3.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Kent County4.7% Maryland4.8%	4.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Kent County10.9% Maryland9.2%	10.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Kent County10.7% Maryland8.6%	10.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Kent County13.6% Maryland14.0%	13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Kent County10.0% Maryland10.8%	10.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Kent County9.9% Maryland11.9%	9.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Kent County6.7% Maryland6.2%	6.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Kent County6.4% Maryland7.9%	6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Kent County1.9% Maryland3.3%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Kent County1.7% Maryland1.5%	1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Kent County9.6% Maryland6.3%	9.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Kent County6.8% Maryland5.5%	6.8%

Kent County Maryland Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Kent County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.0% across Maryland. Early starts are less common than in Maryland: 11.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Maryland's: 44.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.3%) 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 Kent 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 Kent 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 Kent County next to Maryland 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.

• Kent County
• Maryland
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Kent County	Maryland	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:36 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:36 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:39 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Kent County were on the road by 7:39 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). Maryland followed the same path, with the typical start moving 4 minutes later. Commuters in Kent County now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Kent County's commute time compare?

Metric	Kent County	Maryland	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 min	28.3 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.8%	19.3%	15.0%
Walked	10.3%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	4.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Kent County is 20.1 minutes, shorter than the 28.3 minutes in Maryland.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 4.2% in Maryland. 10.3% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Maryland.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau