Lincoln County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lincoln County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lincoln County spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 128 hours, about 5.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the New Mexico average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.5 minutes.

Lincoln County holds about 1.0% of New Mexico's population but accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lincoln County would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,589 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	15.4 min	30.8 min	128 hrs/yr	$3,972	345
New Mexico	18.8 min	37.7 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,866	619
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: New Mexico Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 15.4 minutes to get to work in Lincoln County. That's 31% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lincoln County

• Car: 84.0%
• Worked at Home: 11.1%
• Other: 3.6%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Lincoln County, versus 0.1% in New Mexico.

Public transit is unusually rare in Lincoln County: 5.0 times less than the New Mexico average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Lincoln County, versus 0.1% in New Mexico.

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
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	83.8%	11.4%	0.3%	3.7%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	83.4%	11.3%	0.3%	4.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	84.7%	10.3%	0.3%	3.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	85.1%	9.8%	0.0%	4.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	87.1%	6.9%	0.7%	4.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	89.5%	5.7%	1.1%	3.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	87.5%	7.2%	1.2%	3.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	87.0%	7.9%	1.5%	3.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	87.2%	7.6%	1.8%	3.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	88.5%	8.0%	0.6%	2.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	86.0%	10.6%	0.1%	3.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	82.7%	14.0%	2.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	83.1%	13.8%	1.9%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	83.2%	13.6%	2.0%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	83.8%	12.8%	1.9%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.0%	11.1%	3.6%	0.8%	0.3%	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 was highest in 2014 at 89.5% and lowest in 2020 at 82.7%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 83.8% in 2009 and 84.0% in 2024. It has risen in each of the last 4 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.7% to 0.8% of workers (down 2.9 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 14.0% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 11.1%.

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 New Mexico for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Lincoln County4.0% New Mexico4.6%	4.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lincoln County4.1% New Mexico3.5%	4.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lincoln County3.0% New Mexico5.1%	3.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lincoln County5.5% New Mexico8.7%	5.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lincoln County11.1% New Mexico10.1%	11.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lincoln County13.1% New Mexico15.5%	13.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lincoln County13.8% New Mexico14.8%	13.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lincoln County19.4% New Mexico11.1%	19.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lincoln County3.4% New Mexico4.5%	3.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lincoln County6.2% New Mexico6.0%	6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lincoln County3.5% New Mexico3.1%	3.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lincoln County1.2% New Mexico1.3%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lincoln County7.5% New Mexico6.3%	7.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lincoln County4.2% New Mexico5.5%	4.2%

Lincoln County New Mexico Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Lincoln County is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 19.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.1% across New Mexico. Early starts are less common than in New Mexico: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.1% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New Mexico: 57.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.6%) 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 New Mexico 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
• New Mexico
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lincoln County	New Mexico	United States
2009	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:55 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:50 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:57 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:00 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:55 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lincoln County were on the road by 7:50 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:47 AM). That goes against the trend across New Mexico, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Lincoln County now leave 12 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Lincoln County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lincoln County	New Mexico	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.4 min	18.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 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	11.1%	12.2%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lincoln County is 15.4 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in New Mexico.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in New Mexico. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.9% in New Mexico.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau