Chowan County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Chowan County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Chowan County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 173 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 1.1 minutes.

Chowan County holds about 0.1% of North Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Chowan County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,143 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)
Chowan County	20.7 min	41.5 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,356	671
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 20.7 minutes to get to work in Chowan County. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Chowan County

• Car: 87.8%
• Worked at Home: 8.0%
• Walked: 2.1%
• Other: 1.1%
• Bicycle: 1.0% unusually high
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Chowan County, versus 0.1% in North Carolina.

Public transit is essentially absent in Chowan County, versus 0.7% in North Carolina.

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

Biking is unusually common in Chowan County: 5.6 times more than the North Carolina average (1.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Chowan County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.1%	3.2%	2.1%	5.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	88.9%	2.4%	2.9%	5.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	89.5%	2.5%	2.8%	4.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	91.8%	2.1%	2.6%	2.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	95.1%	1.5%	1.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	92.3%	3.5%	1.8%	1.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	91.7%	2.7%	3.0%	0.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2016	88.6%	4.2%	3.7%	1.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	89.6%	3.8%	3.7%	1.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	89.7%	3.8%	3.6%	1.1%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	89.8%	3.9%	3.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	91.1%	5.5%	1.1%	1.2%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	93.3%	3.2%	1.6%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.6%	4.0%	1.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.1%	5.9%	2.5%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.8%	8.0%	2.1%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	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 95.1%. Overall it fell from 89.1% in 2009 to 87.8% in 2024, down 1.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Chowan County: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 8.0% in 2024, up 4.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 3.9% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 2.1%.

Commute Start Times in Chowan County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Chowan County?

The bars show when commuters in Chowan 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 Chowan County4.6% North Carolina4.4%	4.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Chowan County4.7% North Carolina3.5%	4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Chowan County4.0% North Carolina4.6%	4.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Chowan County10.4% North Carolina9.0%	10.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Chowan County14.5% North Carolina10.2%	14.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Chowan County13.9% North Carolina15.3%	13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Chowan County14.7% North Carolina12.8%	14.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Chowan County11.5% North Carolina11.7%	11.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Chowan County5.5% North Carolina5.4%	5.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Chowan County1.9% North Carolina6.4%	1.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Chowan County3.0% North Carolina2.8%	3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Chowan County0.7% North Carolina1.4%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Chowan County5.5% North Carolina6.3%	5.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Chowan County5.2% North Carolina6.4%	5.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Chowan County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.8% across North Carolina. Early starts are about as common as in North Carolina: 13.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in North Carolina: 54.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.3%) 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 Chowan 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 Chowan 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 Chowan 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.

• Chowan County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Chowan County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:13 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:15 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:19 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Chowan County were on the road by 7:26 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:22 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Chowan County now leave 12 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 Chowan County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Chowan County's commute time compare?

Metric	Chowan County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.7 min	21.9 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.0%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Chowan County is 20.7 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 2.1% commute by walking, higher than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau