Garner Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Garner, 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

Is the commute in Garner longer than the national average?

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

Commute Time Burden in Garner: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Garner spend about 52 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 216 hours, about 9.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 19% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 4.1 minutes.

Garner holds about 0.2% 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 Garner would save about 86 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,678 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)
Garner	25.9 min	51.8 min	216 hrs/yr	$6,696	3,585
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.

Garner Commute Map

On average, it takes 25.9 minutes to get to work in Garner. That's 16% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 22.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Garner

Public transit is unusually rare in Garner: 5.3 times less than the North Carolina average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Garner: 8.3 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Garner, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Garner 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	Other	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Bicycle
2009	92.8%	5.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.1%
2010	91.5%	6.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.8%	0.1%
2011	91.0%	6.4%	0.3%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.1%
2012	91.9%	5.7%	0.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2013	91.9%	5.4%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2014	91.1%	5.3%	0.7%	1.7%	0.1%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%
2015	91.5%	5.2%	0.7%	1.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2016	91.4%	5.5%	0.7%	1.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2017	90.9%	5.8%	0.7%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2018	91.0%	6.1%	0.5%	1.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2019	90.9%	6.5%	0.4%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2020	86.7%	10.7%	0.4%	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	83.3%	13.5%	0.4%	1.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	82.1%	15.4%	0.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	78.5%	18.7%	1.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	74.7%	22.9%	1.1%	0.8%	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. Overall its share fell from 92.8% in 2009 to 74.7% in 2024, down 18.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Garner: its share of workers rose from 5.5% in 2009 to 22.9% in 2024, up 17.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 16.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 0.6% to 0.1% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Walking overtook public transit to become the 4th most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 1.9% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 0.8%.

Commute Start Times in Garner

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Garner?

The bars show when commuters in Garner 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		4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		13.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		19.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Garner is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 9.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 48.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.7%) 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 Garner, 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 Garner 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 Garner 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	Garner	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:34 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Garner were on the road by 7:30 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:26 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Garner now leave 8 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Garner's commute time compare?

Metric	Garner	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.9 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.9%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Garner is 25.9 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Garner, NC Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Garner, NC compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Garner, NC	24,278	25.9 min #2/3	22.9% #3/3	7:30 AM #2/3
Raleigh, NC	423,734	21.0 min	26.2%	8:03 AM
Fuquay-Varina, NC	24,602	32.4 min	29.3%	7:23 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Garner, North Carolina.

Is commuting expensive in Garner, North Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 216 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,696 at a typical national wage. That's 19% more than the typical North Carolina commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Garner, North Carolina?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Garner, North Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Garner, 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.

How much time do residents in Garner, North Carolina save by working from home?

About 22.9% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Garner would save about 86 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,678 at the same national wage assumption used above.