Dare County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dare County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dare County spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 145 hours, about 6.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 4.4 minutes.

Dare County holds about 0.4% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dare County would save about 58 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,799 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)
Dare County	17.4 min	34.8 min	145 hrs/yr	$4,498	980
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 17.4 minutes to get to work in Dare County. That's 22% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 3 fastest counties in North Carolina

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 14.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dare County

• Car: 81.2%
• Worked at Home: 14.2%
• Walked: 2.9%
• Bicycle: 1.0% unusually high
• Other: 0.8%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

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

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Dare County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	86.1%	8.0%	2.5%	0.6%	1.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.8%
2010	86.6%	8.6%	2.3%	0.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.7%
2011	86.7%	9.0%	2.0%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2012	89.0%	7.3%	1.3%	1.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	90.2%	6.5%	0.6%	1.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	91.1%	5.7%	1.0%	1.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	90.2%	5.6%	1.2%	1.7%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	90.0%	6.0%	1.6%	1.1%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	89.6%	6.2%	2.0%	1.0%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	88.2%	7.2%	2.5%	0.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	86.9%	8.3%	2.3%	1.0%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	87.8%	8.8%	2.0%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.4%	9.7%	2.0%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	84.3%	12.4%	1.7%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.8%	14.3%	2.1%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	81.2%	14.2%	2.9%	1.0%	0.8%	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 2014 at 91.1%. Overall it fell from 86.1% in 2009 to 81.2% in 2024, down 4.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Dare County: its share of workers rose from 8.0% in 2009 to 14.2% in 2024, up 6.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Riding a motorcycle lost the most ground, falling from 0.8% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Biking overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 4th most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Dare County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dare County?

The bars show when commuters in Dare 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 Dare County3.4% North Carolina4.4%	3.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dare County2.0% North Carolina3.5%	2.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dare County4.0% North Carolina4.6%	4.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dare County8.2% North Carolina9.0%	8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dare County8.7% North Carolina10.2%	8.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dare County15.6% North Carolina15.3%	15.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dare County9.1% North Carolina12.8%	9.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dare County13.4% North Carolina11.7%	13.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dare County9.3% North Carolina5.4%	9.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dare County8.6% North Carolina6.4%	8.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dare County5.7% North Carolina2.8%	5.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dare County1.2% North Carolina1.4%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dare County6.3% North Carolina6.3%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dare County4.5% North Carolina6.4%	4.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dare County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 9.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in North Carolina: 46.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.3%) 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 Dare 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 Dare 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 Dare 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.

• Dare County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dare County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:54 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:58 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:59 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:02 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:04 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:57 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:55 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:56 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:58 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:57 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dare County were on the road by 7:57 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:54 AM). North Carolina followed the same path, with the typical start moving 1 minute later. Commuters in Dare County 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 Dare County has moved 8 minutes earlier.

How does Dare County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dare County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.4 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	14.2%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dare County is 17.4 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 2.9% commute by walking, higher than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau