Laurel Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:01 PM

Is the commute in Laurel longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:01 PM

Commute Time Burden in Laurel: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Laurel spend about 61 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 252 hours, about 10.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the Maryland average of 28.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.0 minutes.

Laurel holds about 0.4% of Maryland's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Laurel would save about 101 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,130 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)
Laurel	30.3 min	60.6 min	252 hrs/yr	$7,826	4,038
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.

Laurel Commute Map

On average, it takes 30.3 minutes to get to work in Laurel. That's 35% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 15.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Laurel

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Laurel, versus 0.1% in Maryland.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Laurel: 6.5 times more than the Maryland average (3.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Laurel, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Laurel 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	Taxi	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle
2009	82.2%	2.1%	0.1%	3.2%	11.2%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
2010	81.1%	2.6%	0.4%	3.1%	10.9%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2011	81.3%	2.6%	0.0%	3.8%	10.4%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%
2012	82.0%	2.9%	0.0%	4.2%	9.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	82.8%	3.4%	0.3%	4.5%	7.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	83.6%	3.2%	0.4%	3.8%	8.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	84.5%	2.3%	0.5%	3.8%	8.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	84.5%	2.1%	0.7%	3.8%	8.1%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%
2017	82.8%	2.3%	0.7%	4.3%	8.7%	0.1%	0.9%	0.1%
2018	82.3%	2.5%	0.4%	4.5%	9.1%	0.3%	1.0%	0.1%
2019	81.5%	3.6%	0.7%	4.3%	8.7%	0.3%	0.8%	0.1%
2020	80.3%	5.7%	1.0%	3.9%	7.7%	0.5%	0.9%	0.1%
2021	80.5%	8.0%	2.0%	3.0%	5.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	78.4%	11.6%	2.6%	2.7%	4.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	79.6%	13.2%	2.5%	2.0%	2.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	76.5%	15.8%	3.1%	1.7%	1.5%	0.8%	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 2015 at 84.5%. Overall it fell from 82.2% in 2009 to 76.5% in 2024, down 5.7 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Laurel: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2024, up 13.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 11.2% to 1.5% of workers (down 9.7 percentage points).

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

Walking peaked at 4.5% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 1.7%.

Commute Start Times in Laurel

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Laurel?

The bars show when commuters in Laurel 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		7.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Laurel is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.0% across Maryland. Early starts are more common than in Maryland: 18.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Maryland: 41.6% 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 Laurel, 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 Laurel 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 Laurel 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.

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

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Laurel	Maryland	United States
2009	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:34 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:40 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Laurel were on the road by 7:37 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:34 AM). Maryland followed the same path, with the typical start moving 4 minutes later. Commuters in Laurel now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Laurel has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Laurel's commute time compare?

Metric	Laurel	Maryland	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	30.3 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.8%	19.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.5%	4.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Laurel is 30.3 minutes, longer than the 28.3 minutes in Maryland.

1.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 4.2% in Maryland. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Maryland.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Laurel, MD Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Laurel, MD compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Laurel, MD	25,209	30.3 min #2/3	15.8% #2/3	7:37 AM #1/3
North Laurel, MD	23,968	27.5 min	20.4%	7:43 AM
South Laurel, MD	30,999	31.3 min	14.6%	7:47 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Laurel, Maryland.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Laurel, Maryland?

Commuters here spend an estimated 252 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,826 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical Maryland commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Laurel, Maryland?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Laurel, Maryland. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.