Genesee County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Genesee County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Genesee County spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 181 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% more time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.4 minutes.

Genesee County holds about 4.0% of Michigan's population but accounts for roughly 4.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Genesee County would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,242 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)
Genesee County	21.7 min	43.4 min	181 hrs/yr	$5,604	1,836
Michigan	21.3 min	42.6 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,509	1,585
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: Michigan Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 21.7 minutes to get to work in Genesee County. That's 3% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Genesee County

• Car: 87.6%
• Worked at Home: 9.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.9%
• Walked: 0.9%
• Other: 0.5%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Genesee County: 4.4 times less than the Michigan average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually rare in Genesee County: 3.6 times less than the Michigan average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Genesee County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Genesee 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
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	94.1%	3.0%	1.2%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	94.3%	3.0%	1.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	94.3%	2.9%	1.0%	1.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	94.2%	3.0%	1.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	93.8%	3.1%	1.1%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	94.0%	2.9%	1.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.9%	2.9%	1.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	93.7%	3.0%	1.3%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	93.7%	3.1%	1.2%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	93.6%	3.1%	1.5%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	93.1%	3.7%	1.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	92.1%	4.5%	1.5%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	91.1%	5.8%	1.3%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	89.5%	7.4%	1.2%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	87.9%	9.1%	1.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	87.6%	9.9%	0.9%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 94.3%. Overall it fell from 94.1% in 2009 to 87.6% in 2024, down 6.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Genesee County: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 9.9% in 2024, up 6.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Genesee County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Genesee County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Genesee County5.7% Michigan5.3%	5.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Genesee County4.9% Michigan3.9%	4.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Genesee County5.6% Michigan5.1%	5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Genesee County9.2% Michigan8.0%	9.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Genesee County9.9% Michigan9.0%	9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Genesee County11.3% Michigan13.0%	11.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Genesee County10.6% Michigan12.1%	10.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Genesee County9.0% Michigan10.9%	9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Genesee County5.0% Michigan5.6%	5.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Genesee County6.7% Michigan6.7%	6.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Genesee County3.4% Michigan3.2%	3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Genesee County1.3% Michigan1.6%	1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Genesee County9.6% Michigan8.5%	9.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Genesee County8.0% Michigan7.1%	8.0%

Genesee County Michigan Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Genesee County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Michigan. Early starts are more common than in Michigan: 16.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Michigan: 40.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (28.9%) 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 Genesee 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 Genesee 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 Genesee County next to Michigan 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.

• Genesee County
• Michigan
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Genesee County	Michigan	United States
2009	7:45 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:43 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:44 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:39 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Genesee County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:45 AM). Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Genesee County now leave 2 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 Genesee County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Genesee County's commute time compare?

Metric	Genesee County	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.7 min	21.3 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.9%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.9%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Genesee County is 21.7 minutes, longer than the 21.3 minutes in Michigan.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Michigan. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau