Commuting in New Hanover County, North Carolina: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.
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What does a typical morning commute look like in New Hanover County?
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Commute Time Burden in New Hanover County: Annual Hours and Cost
Commuters in New Hanover 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 150 hours, about 6.3 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 3.8 minutes.
New Hanover County holds about 2.2% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 1.8% of its total commuting time.
Working from home just 2 days a week in New Hanover County would save about 60 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,862 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)
New Hanover County
18.0 min
36.0 min
150 hrs/yr
$4,656
2,865
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.
On average, it takes
18.0
minutes to get to work in
New Hanover County.
That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.
Faster than 92% of counties in North Carolina
The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.4% work from home.
How People Get to Work in New Hanover County
Car:
76.9%
Worked at Home:
19.4%
Walked:
1.4%
Other:
1.1%
Bicycle:
0.6%unusually high
Taxi:
0.2%
Public Transportation:
0.2%unusually low
Motorcycle:
< 0.1%
Public transit is unusually rare in New Hanover County: 3.1 times less than the North Carolina average (0.2% vs 0.7%).
Biking is unusually common in New Hanover County: 3.6 times more than the North Carolina average (0.6% vs 0.2%).
Commute Mode Trends in New Hanover County, 2009-2024
This chart shows how workers in New Hanover 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.
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
Bicycle
Public Transportation
Taxi
Motorcycle
2009
91.5%
4.0%
2.0%
0.7%
0.7%
0.8%
0.1%
0.2%
2010
91.6%
4.1%
1.9%
0.6%
0.8%
0.6%
0.1%
0.2%
2011
91.2%
4.6%
1.6%
0.6%
0.9%
0.8%
0.1%
0.2%
2012
90.3%
4.8%
2.0%
0.7%
1.0%
0.7%
0.2%
0.3%
2013
89.0%
5.5%
2.3%
1.0%
1.0%
0.9%
0.2%
0.2%
2014
88.4%
6.2%
2.0%
1.1%
0.9%
1.0%
0.2%
0.2%
2015
87.7%
6.8%
1.9%
1.1%
1.0%
1.0%
0.2%
0.3%
2016
87.7%
7.0%
2.0%
1.0%
0.9%
0.9%
0.2%
0.3%
2017
87.9%
7.3%
1.7%
0.9%
0.8%
1.1%
0.1%
0.2%
2018
89.1%
7.0%
1.7%
0.7%
0.6%
0.7%
0.1%
0.2%
2019
88.6%
7.6%
1.9%
0.5%
0.6%
0.5%
0.1%
0.2%
2020
86.4%
10.5%
1.8%
0.2%
0.4%
0.4%
0.2%
0.1%
2021
84.3%
12.8%
1.6%
0.3%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
0.1%
2022
82.4%
14.8%
1.4%
0.5%
0.4%
0.2%
0.1%
0.1%
2023
79.2%
17.8%
1.4%
0.6%
0.5%
0.2%
0.2%
0.0%
2024
76.9%
19.4%
1.4%
1.1%
0.6%
0.2%
0.2%
0.1%
Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 91.6%. Overall it fell from 91.5% in 2009 to 76.9% in 2024, down 14.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.
Working from home gained the most ground in New Hanover County: its share of workers rose from 4.0% in 2009 to 19.4% in 2024, up 15.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 11.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.
Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.0% to 1.4% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).
Commute Start Times in New Hanover County
What Time Do People Leave for Work in New Hanover County?
The bars show when commuters in New Hanover 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.
New Hanover CountyNorth CarolinaSource: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates
The busiest time to head out in New Hanover County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.8% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 7.0% 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 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 New Hanover 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 New Hanover 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 New Hanover 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.
Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.Show typical departure times by year
Year
New Hanover County
North Carolina
United States
2009
7:55 AM
7:36 AM
7:37 AM
2010
7:55 AM
7:36 AM
7:38 AM
2011
7:54 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2012
7:56 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2013
7:55 AM
7:38 AM
7:39 AM
2014
7:55 AM
7:38 AM
7:39 AM
2015
7:56 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2016
7:58 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2017
7:56 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2018
7:58 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2019
7:58 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2020
7:55 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2021
7:54 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2022
7:56 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2023
7:56 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2024
7:56 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
In 2024, half of commuters in New Hanover County were on the road by 7:56 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across North Carolina, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in New Hanover County now leave 18 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 New Hanover County has moved 2 minutes earlier.
How does New Hanover County's commute time compare?
Metric
New Hanover County
North Carolina
US Average
Avg. Commute Time
18.0 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
07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home
19.4%
16.3%
15.0%
Walked
1.4%
1.6%
2.4%
Public Transit
0.2%
0.7%
3.2%
The average commute time in New Hanover County is 18.0 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.
0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 1.4% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.
New Hanover County, NC Commute Compared With Nearby Counties
New Hanover County, NC is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 235,214 residents against a local median of 65,530. The measure that sets New Hanover County, NC apart most is work from home: 19.4%, 52% above the local median of 12.8%.
One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 18.0 min against a local median of 23.0 min, 22% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 22% below the local median it puts New Hanover County, NC at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 9.3% on work from home, so New Hanover County, NC sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. New Hanover County, NC has the highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.
Common questions about commuting in New Hanover County, North Carolina.
How much does the average commute cost workers in New Hanover County, North Carolina?
Commuters here spend an estimated 150 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,656 at a typical national wage. That's 18% less than the typical North Carolina commuter spends.
When is rush hour worst in New Hanover County, North Carolina?
Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in New Hanover County, North Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.
How common is public transit use in New Hanover County, North Carolina?
Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.7% in North Carolina, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.
How do commute times compare across counties in North Carolina?
Among counties in North Carolina, the shortest average commutes are in Macon County (17.2 min), Watauga County (17.2 min), Dare County (17.4 min). The longest are in Gates County (35.9 min), Currituck County (33.9 min), Tyrrell County (33.6 min).