Lincoln County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lincoln County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lincoln County spend about 56 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 232 hours, about 9.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 6.0 minutes.

Lincoln County holds about 0.9% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lincoln County would save about 93 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,882 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)
Lincoln County	27.9 min	55.8 min	232 hrs/yr	$7,206	1,956
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 27.9 minutes to get to work in Lincoln County. That's 24% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 87% 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 14.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lincoln County

• Car: 83.4%
• Worked at Home: 14.3%
• Other: 1.2%
• Walked: 0.9%
• Motorcycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Lincoln County: 16.7 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Lincoln County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	94.6%	2.8%	0.9%	1.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	94.9%	3.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	94.7%	3.4%	0.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	94.3%	3.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	94.2%	4.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	93.9%	4.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	93.7%	4.6%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	94.1%	4.1%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	94.2%	4.2%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	94.2%	4.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	94.2%	4.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	92.7%	5.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.5%	7.7%	0.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	87.8%	9.9%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	85.3%	12.0%	1.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	83.4%	14.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.3%	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 2010 at 94.9%. Overall it fell from 94.6% in 2009 to 83.4% in 2024, down 11.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lincoln County: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 14.3% in 2024, up 11.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Lincoln County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lincoln County?

The bars show when commuters in Lincoln 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 Lincoln County4.3% North Carolina4.4%	4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lincoln County4.4% North Carolina3.5%	4.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lincoln County7.5% North Carolina4.6%	7.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lincoln County11.4% North Carolina9.0%	11.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lincoln County12.4% North Carolina10.2%	12.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lincoln County17.3% North Carolina15.3%	17.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lincoln County11.1% North Carolina12.8%	11.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lincoln County9.8% North Carolina11.7%	9.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lincoln County3.7% North Carolina5.4%	3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lincoln County3.9% North Carolina6.4%	3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lincoln County1.8% North Carolina2.8%	1.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lincoln County1.4% North Carolina1.4%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lincoln County5.1% North Carolina6.3%	5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lincoln County5.7% North Carolina6.4%	5.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lincoln County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 17.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are more common than in North Carolina: 16.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 50.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (18.1%) 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 Lincoln 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 Lincoln 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 Lincoln 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.

• Lincoln County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lincoln County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:19 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:15 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:15 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:17 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lincoln County were on the road by 7:17 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). That goes against the trend across North Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Lincoln County now leave 21 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 Lincoln County has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Lincoln County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lincoln County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.9 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	14.3%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lincoln County is 27.9 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.0% 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