Caldwell County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Caldwell County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Caldwell County spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 183 hours, about 7.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 0.1 minutes.

Caldwell County holds about 0.8% of North Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Caldwell County would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,271 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)
Caldwell County	22.0 min	44.0 min	183 hrs/yr	$5,678	1,614
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.

Commute Time Map: North Carolina Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 22.0 minutes to get to work in Caldwell County. That's 2% 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 7.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Caldwell County

• Car: 91.4%
• Worked at Home: 7.1%
• Other: 0.7%
• Walked: 0.6%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Caldwell County: 15.6 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Caldwell County, versus 0.2% in North Carolina.

Biking is essentially absent in Caldwell County, versus 0.2% in North Carolina.

Commute Mode Trends in Caldwell County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	96.1%	2.2%	0.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	95.3%	2.4%	0.7%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	94.5%	3.1%	0.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	94.9%	2.7%	0.8%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	94.5%	2.9%	1.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	94.2%	3.5%	1.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	94.3%	3.6%	1.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	93.7%	3.9%	1.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	93.7%	3.7%	1.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	92.9%	4.0%	2.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	93.1%	3.4%	2.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	92.9%	4.0%	2.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.3%	4.6%	2.1%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.1%	5.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	92.0%	6.3%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.4%	7.1%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 96.1% in 2009 to 91.4% in 2024, down 4.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Caldwell County: its share of workers rose from 2.2% in 2009 to 7.1% in 2024, up 4.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Caldwell County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Caldwell County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Caldwell County5.3% North Carolina4.4%	5.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Caldwell County4.7% North Carolina3.5%	4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Caldwell County4.9% North Carolina4.6%	4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Caldwell County12.5% North Carolina9.0%	12.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Caldwell County10.8% North Carolina10.2%	10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Caldwell County15.9% North Carolina15.3%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Caldwell County13.2% North Carolina12.8%	13.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Caldwell County9.6% North Carolina11.7%	9.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Caldwell County3.2% North Carolina5.4%	3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Caldwell County4.8% North Carolina6.4%	4.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Caldwell County1.8% North Carolina2.8%	1.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Caldwell County1.0% North Carolina1.4%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Caldwell County6.5% North Carolina6.3%	6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Caldwell County5.8% North Carolina6.4%	5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Caldwell County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are more common than in North Carolina: 14.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 49.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.9%) 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 Caldwell 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 Caldwell 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 Caldwell County 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.

• Caldwell County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Caldwell County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Caldwell County were on the road by 7:22 AM, 2 minutes later than in 2009 (7:21 AM). North Carolina followed the same path, with the typical start moving 1 minute later. Commuters in Caldwell County now leave 15 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Caldwell County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Caldwell County's commute time compare?

Metric	Caldwell County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.0 min	21.9 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	7.1%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Caldwell County is about the same as in North Carolina.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau