Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union 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 234 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 6.2 minutes.

Union County holds about 2.3% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 3.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 93 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,896 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)
Union County	28.0 min	56.1 min	234 hrs/yr	$7,241	2,160
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 28.0 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 25% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 88% 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 19.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

• Car: 78.5%
• Worked at Home: 19.5%
• Other: 0.8%
• Walked: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Union County: 4.1 times less than the North Carolina average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Union County: 5.0 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Union County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.4%	5.5%	0.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	91.9%	6.1%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	92.1%	5.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	91.5%	6.4%	0.7%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	91.3%	6.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	90.6%	6.8%	0.7%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	90.8%	6.6%	0.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	90.3%	7.1%	0.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	90.3%	7.2%	0.8%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	90.3%	7.2%	0.8%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	90.3%	7.5%	0.8%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	87.7%	10.2%	0.6%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	84.8%	13.4%	0.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	82.5%	15.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	80.1%	18.0%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	78.5%	19.5%	0.8%	0.7%	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. Overall its share fell from 92.4% in 2009 to 78.5% in 2024, down 13.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 5.5% in 2009 to 19.5% in 2024, up 14.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Union County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Union County?

The bars show when commuters in Union 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 Union County4.1% North Carolina4.4%	4.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Union County2.9% North Carolina3.5%	2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Union County3.7% North Carolina4.6%	3.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Union County9.4% North Carolina9.0%	9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Union County13.1% North Carolina10.2%	13.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Union County17.2% North Carolina15.3%	17.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Union County11.4% North Carolina12.8%	11.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Union County12.3% North Carolina11.7%	12.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Union County4.9% North Carolina5.4%	4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Union County6.9% North Carolina6.4%	6.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Union County2.1% North Carolina2.8%	2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Union County1.4% North Carolina1.4%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Union County5.3% North Carolina6.3%	5.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Union County5.3% North Carolina6.4%	5.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Union County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 17.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 10.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in North Carolina: 54.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.1%) 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 Union 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 Union 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 Union 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.

• Union County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

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

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:29 AM, 6 minutes later than in 2009 (7:24 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Union County now leave 8 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 Union County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.0 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	19.5%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is 28.0 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau