Apex Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:14 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Apex?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:14 PM

Commute Time Burden in Apex: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Apex spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 192 hours, about 8.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

Apex holds about 0.4% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Apex would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,380 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)
Apex	23.0 min	46.1 min	192 hrs/yr	$5,951	2,609
North Carolina	21.9 min	43.7 min	182 hrs/yr	$5,645	1,609
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.

Apex Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.0 minutes to get to work in Apex. That's 3% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 34.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Apex

Driving is 23% less common in Apex than the North Carolina average (61.8% vs 80.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Apex: 5.2 times less than the North Carolina average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Apex: 7.8 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Apex, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Apex 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	Walked	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Bicycle
2009	90.4%	6.2%	0.7%	1.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%
2010	91.0%	5.0%	0.4%	2.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	89.8%	6.1%	1.1%	2.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	88.0%	7.9%	1.2%	2.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%
2013	89.4%	7.7%	1.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%
2014	88.8%	7.9%	1.1%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.8%	0.2%
2015	88.2%	8.8%	1.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%
2016	88.7%	8.7%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.8%	0.2%
2017	89.0%	8.8%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.2%
2018	88.8%	9.2%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%	0.1%
2019	88.5%	10.0%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	82.6%	13.9%	1.0%	2.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	77.3%	20.5%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	70.4%	26.8%	1.6%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	65.4%	31.4%	1.7%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	61.8%	34.8%	1.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%	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 91.0%. Overall it fell from 90.4% in 2009 to 61.8% in 2024, down 28.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Apex: its share of workers rose from 6.2% in 2009 to 34.8% in 2024, up 28.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 24.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Apex

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Apex?

The bars show when commuters in Apex 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 North Carolina for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		2.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		0.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		15.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		10.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		10.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		3.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.5%

Apex North Carolina Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Apex is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 15.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.7% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 5.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in North Carolina: 56.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.6%) 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 Apex, 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 Apex 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 Apex next to North Carolina 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	Apex	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:48 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:54 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:56 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:55 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:54 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:54 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:50 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:54 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:57 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Apex were on the road by 7:57 AM, 10 minutes later than in 2009 (7:48 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Apex now leave 19 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 Apex has moved 7 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Apex in the whole series.

How does Apex's commute time compare?

Metric	Apex	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.0 min	21.9 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 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	34.8%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Apex is 23.0 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Apex, NC Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Apex, NC is the 2nd largest of the 5 cities compared here, 47,941 residents against a local median of 26,903. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest cities, which makes Apex, NC an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 10% below the local median at 23.0 min against 25.7 min. Apex, NC has the 3rd lowest one-way commute of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Apex, NC	47,941	23.0 min #3/5	34.8% #3/5	7:57 AM #3/5
Holly Springs, NC	29,205	30.2 min	31.8%	7:49 AM
Cary, NC	159,804	21.1 min	35.7%	8:09 AM
Morrisville, NC	22,339	20.1 min	39.6%	8:08 AM
Fuquay-Varina, NC	24,602	32.4 min	29.3%	7:23 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Apex, North Carolina.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Apex, North Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 192 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,951 at a typical national wage. That's 5% more than the typical North Carolina commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Apex, North Carolina?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Apex, North Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Apex, North Carolina?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.1% of commuters use it versus 0.7% in North Carolina, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Is Apex, North Carolina a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 34.8% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Apex would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,380 at the same national wage assumption used above.