North Laurel Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in North 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, 4:02 PM

How much time do drivers in North Laurel spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:02 PM

Commute Time Burden in North Laurel: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in North Laurel spend about 55 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 229 hours, about 9.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% less time on the road than the Maryland average of 28.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.8 minutes.

North 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 North Laurel would save about 92 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,842 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)
North Laurel	27.5 min	55.0 min	229 hrs/yr	$7,104	4,878
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.

North Laurel Commute Map

On average, it takes 27.5 minutes to get to work in North Laurel. That's 23% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 20.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in North Laurel

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

Public transit is unusually rare in North Laurel: 8.0 times less than the Maryland average (0.5% vs 4.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in North Laurel: 6.2 times less than the Maryland average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in North Laurel, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in North 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	Other	Walked	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	86.9%	4.5%	0.4%	2.0%	0.0%	6.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	88.2%	4.8%	0.4%	1.5%	0.3%	4.6%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	88.3%	4.6%	0.3%	1.3%	0.3%	5.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	88.0%	4.3%	0.3%	1.8%	0.2%	5.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	89.7%	3.8%	0.4%	1.3%	0.1%	4.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	87.7%	3.0%	0.5%	1.9%	0.1%	6.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	88.4%	3.0%	0.8%	1.5%	0.2%	6.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	87.2%	3.2%	0.8%	2.1%	0.2%	6.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	84.7%	4.6%	1.7%	2.1%	0.2%	6.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	84.5%	4.9%	1.9%	1.7%	0.2%	6.7%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	85.0%	5.8%	1.8%	0.8%	0.2%	5.8%	0.5%	0.2%
2020	81.3%	9.1%	0.8%	1.3%	0.1%	7.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2021	80.3%	13.1%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	4.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	81.1%	14.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	2.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2023	77.7%	19.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%	1.9%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	75.4%	20.4%	1.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.5%	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 89.7%. Overall it fell from 86.9% in 2009 to 75.4% in 2024, down 11.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in North Laurel: its share of workers rose from 4.5% in 2009 to 20.4% in 2024, up 15.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 14.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.2% to 0.5% of workers (down 5.7 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in North Laurel

What Time Do People Leave for Work in North Laurel?

The bars show when commuters in North 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		3.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		6.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		4.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in North Laurel is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.0% across Maryland. Early starts are less common than in Maryland: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Maryland: 42.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.3% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (29.0%) 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 North 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 North 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 North 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	North Laurel	Maryland	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 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	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:43 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in North Laurel were on the road by 7:43 AM, 17 minutes later than in 2009 (7:26 AM). The shift is sharper than across Maryland, where the typical start moved 4 minutes later. Commuters in North Laurel 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 North Laurel has moved 4 minutes later.

How does North Laurel's commute time compare?

Metric	North Laurel	Maryland	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.5 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	20.4%	19.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	4.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in North Laurel is 27.5 minutes, shorter than the 28.3 minutes in Maryland.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 4.2% in Maryland. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Maryland.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

North Laurel, MD Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How North Laurel, MD compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in North Laurel, Maryland.

Is living in North Laurel, Maryland good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 229 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,104 at a typical national wage. That's 3% less than the typical Maryland commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in North Laurel, Maryland?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in North Laurel, Maryland. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in North Laurel, Maryland?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.5% of commuters use it versus 4.2% in Maryland, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.