Lenoir County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lenoir County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lenoir County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 156 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Lenoir County holds about 0.5% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lenoir County would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,933 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)
Lenoir County	18.7 min	37.4 min	156 hrs/yr	$4,833	930
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 18.7 minutes to get to work in Lenoir County. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 85% of counties in North Carolina

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 3.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lenoir County

• Car: 94.6%
• Worked at Home: 3.4% unusually low
• Walked: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.6%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Other: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Lenoir County: 5.6 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Lenoir County: 4.8 times less than the North Carolina average (3.4% vs 16.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lenoir County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Other	Taxi
2009	93.2%	3.3%	1.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	1.0%	0.1%
2010	93.1%	3.0%	1.6%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.9%	0.1%
2011	94.2%	2.8%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	94.1%	2.8%	1.2%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%
2013	94.1%	2.5%	2.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	94.0%	2.2%	2.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	94.4%	1.9%	2.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	95.1%	1.3%	2.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.0%
2017	94.7%	1.6%	2.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2018	94.5%	1.8%	2.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2019	94.9%	1.8%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%
2020	95.1%	1.7%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%
2021	94.2%	2.9%	1.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%
2022	95.0%	2.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	94.7%	2.9%	1.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2024	94.6%	3.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2016 at 95.1% and lowest in 2010 at 93.1%. Overall it rose from 93.2% in 2009 to 94.6% in 2024, up 1.4 percentage points.

Walking peaked at 2.6% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 0.9%.

Commute Start Times in Lenoir County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lenoir County?

The bars show when commuters in Lenoir 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 Lenoir County4.7% North Carolina4.4%	4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lenoir County4.5% North Carolina3.5%	4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lenoir County5.8% North Carolina4.6%	5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lenoir County8.7% North Carolina9.0%	8.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lenoir County12.7% North Carolina10.2%	12.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lenoir County17.0% North Carolina15.3%	17.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lenoir County12.7% North Carolina12.8%	12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lenoir County9.1% North Carolina11.7%	9.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lenoir County3.8% North Carolina5.4%	3.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lenoir County3.6% North Carolina6.4%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lenoir County2.9% North Carolina2.8%	2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lenoir County0.7% North Carolina1.4%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lenoir County6.3% North Carolina6.3%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lenoir County7.3% North Carolina6.4%	7.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lenoir County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 17.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are more common than in North Carolina: 15.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 51.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.9%) 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 Lenoir 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 Lenoir 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 Lenoir 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.

• Lenoir County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lenoir County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:27 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lenoir County were on the road by 7:24 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:33 AM). That goes against the trend across North Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Lenoir County now leave 14 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 Lenoir County has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Lenoir County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lenoir County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.7 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	3.4%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lenoir County is 18.7 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau