Jackson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Jackson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jackson County spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 149 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 4.0 minutes.

Jackson 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 Jackson County would save about 60 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,847 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)
Jackson County	17.9 min	35.7 min	149 hrs/yr	$4,617	654
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 17.9 minutes to get to work in Jackson County. That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 93% of counties in North Carolina

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 7.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Jackson County

• Car: 86.2%
• Worked at Home: 7.8%
• Walked: 4.3%
• Other: 1.6%
• 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 Jackson County: 15590.0 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Jackson County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	91.4%	2.2%	5.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	91.4%	2.2%	4.9%	0.9%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	91.9%	1.8%	4.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	90.8%	2.2%	5.3%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	91.8%	2.6%	4.3%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	91.0%	3.6%	4.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	90.9%	3.4%	4.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	90.4%	3.7%	4.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	90.4%	4.1%	4.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	89.4%	4.4%	4.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	90.5%	3.2%	4.8%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	88.9%	5.3%	4.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	89.6%	4.9%	4.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	89.7%	5.3%	3.5%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	88.7%	6.0%	3.9%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.2%	7.8%	4.3%	1.6%	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. Its share peaked in 2011 at 91.9%. Overall it fell from 91.4% in 2009 to 86.2% in 2024, down 5.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jackson County: its share of workers rose from 2.2% in 2009 to 7.8% in 2024, up 5.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.0% to 4.3% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Jackson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jackson County?

The bars show when commuters in Jackson 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 Jackson County2.7% North Carolina4.4%	2.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Jackson County2.9% North Carolina3.5%	2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Jackson County3.6% North Carolina4.6%	3.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Jackson County6.2% North Carolina9.0%	6.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Jackson County13.2% North Carolina10.2%	13.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Jackson County11.6% North Carolina15.3%	11.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Jackson County16.3% North Carolina12.8%	16.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Jackson County8.9% North Carolina11.7%	8.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Jackson County6.5% North Carolina5.4%	6.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Jackson County9.2% North Carolina6.4%	9.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Jackson County4.2% North Carolina2.8%	4.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Jackson County2.0% North Carolina1.4%	2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Jackson County7.9% North Carolina6.3%	7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Jackson County4.8% North Carolina6.4%	4.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jackson County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.8% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 9.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 50.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.1%) 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 Jackson 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 Jackson 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 Jackson 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.

• Jackson County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Jackson County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:55 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:53 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:53 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:57 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:56 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:54 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:58 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:54 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:50 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:45 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jackson County were on the road by 7:48 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:55 AM). That goes against the trend across North Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Jackson County now leave 10 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Jackson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jackson County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.9 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	7.8%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	4.3%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jackson County is 17.9 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 4.3% commute by walking, higher than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau