Matthews Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Matthews, 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

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Matthews?

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

Commute Time Burden in Matthews: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Matthews spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 197 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Matthews holds about 0.3% of North Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Matthews would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,448 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)
Matthews	23.7 min	47.4 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,119	4,102
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.

Matthews Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.7 minutes to get to work in Matthews. That's 6% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 18.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Matthews

Biking is unusually rare in Matthews: 5.1 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Matthews, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Matthews 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	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.8%	7.2%	1.0%	0.5%	1.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	87.5%	8.3%	1.5%	0.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	87.8%	8.2%	1.4%	0.5%	1.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	87.4%	8.8%	1.3%	0.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	87.8%	7.3%	2.0%	0.8%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2014	88.2%	7.2%	1.9%	0.6%	1.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2015	88.6%	7.1%	1.5%	0.7%	1.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	87.7%	8.3%	1.3%	0.9%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	87.8%	8.2%	1.4%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	88.3%	8.2%	0.8%	0.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	89.0%	7.6%	1.0%	1.1%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	86.5%	9.8%	1.5%	0.6%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	84.4%	11.7%	1.7%	0.9%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	82.4%	14.3%	1.4%	0.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.7%	15.6%	1.3%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	79.5%	18.1%	0.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	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 89.8% in 2009 to 79.5% in 2024, down 10.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Matthews: its share of workers rose from 7.2% in 2009 to 18.1% in 2024, up 10.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 10.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.3% to 0.3% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Walking overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 2.0% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 0.9%.

Commute Start Times in Matthews

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Matthews?

The bars show when commuters in Matthews 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		3.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Matthews is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 8.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in North Carolina: 53.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.9%) 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 Matthews, 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 Matthews 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 Matthews 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	Matthews	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:48 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:43 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	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:43 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:54 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:53 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Matthews were on the road by 7:53 AM, 18 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Matthews now leave 15 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 Matthews has moved 11 minutes later.

How does Matthews's commute time compare?

Metric	Matthews	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.7 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	18.1%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Matthews is 23.7 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.3% 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

Matthews, NC Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

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

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Matthews, NC	32,912	23.7 min #1/3	18.1% #3/3	7:53 AM #3/3
Indian Trail, NC	33,281	26.9 min	19.5%	7:29 AM
Mint Hill, NC	25,060	30.4 min	20.5%	7:39 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Matthews, North Carolina.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Matthews, North Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 197 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,119 at a typical national wage. That's 8% more than the typical North Carolina commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Matthews, North Carolina?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Matthews, North Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.