Wilkes County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Wilkes County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wilkes County spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 0.8 minutes.

Wilkes County holds about 0.6% of North Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Wilkes County would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,172 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)
Wilkes County	21.0 min	42.0 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,429	900
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 21.0 minutes to get to work in Wilkes County. That's 6% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 9.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wilkes County

• Car: 89.4%
• Worked at Home: 9.1%
• Walked: 1.0%
• Other: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Wilkes County: 3.7 times less than the North Carolina average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Wilkes County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	95.1%	2.6%	1.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	94.7%	3.3%	1.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	94.3%	3.2%	1.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	94.8%	3.1%	1.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.3%	2.5%	1.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	95.8%	2.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	96.3%	2.1%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	96.3%	2.2%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	95.8%	2.8%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	95.8%	2.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	95.6%	3.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.4%	5.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.6%	5.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.8%	7.6%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.3%	8.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.4%	9.1%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	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 2015 at 96.3%. Overall it fell from 95.1% in 2009 to 89.4% in 2024, down 5.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wilkes County: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 9.1% in 2024, up 6.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.6% to 1.0% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Wilkes County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wilkes County?

The bars show when commuters in Wilkes 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 Wilkes County5.5% North Carolina4.4%	5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Wilkes County5.3% North Carolina3.5%	5.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Wilkes County6.1% North Carolina4.6%	6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Wilkes County8.6% North Carolina9.0%	8.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Wilkes County10.3% North Carolina10.2%	10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Wilkes County13.9% North Carolina15.3%	13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Wilkes County14.7% North Carolina12.8%	14.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Wilkes County9.7% North Carolina11.7%	9.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Wilkes County4.2% North Carolina5.4%	4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Wilkes County4.4% North Carolina6.4%	4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Wilkes County1.6% North Carolina2.8%	1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Wilkes County1.3% North Carolina1.4%	1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Wilkes County8.3% North Carolina6.3%	8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Wilkes County6.2% North Carolina6.4%	6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wilkes County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.8% across North Carolina. Early starts are more common than in North Carolina: 16.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 48.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.8%) 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 Wilkes 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 Wilkes 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 Wilkes 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.

• Wilkes County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Wilkes County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:32 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:33 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wilkes County were on the road by 7:31 AM, 2 minutes later than in 2009 (7:29 AM). North Carolina followed the same path, with the typical start moving 1 minute later. Commuters in Wilkes County now leave 7 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 Wilkes County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Wilkes County's commute time compare?

Metric	Wilkes County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 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	9.1%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wilkes County is 21.0 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau