Sierra County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Sierra County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sierra County spend about 24 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 99 hours, about 4.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 37% less time on the road than the New Mexico average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 7.0 minutes.

Sierra County holds about 0.5% of New Mexico's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sierra County would save about 39 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,222 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)
Sierra County	11.8 min	23.7 min	99 hrs/yr	$3,055	214
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 11.8 minutes to get to work in Sierra County. That's 47% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 84% of counties in New Mexico

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 8.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sierra County

• Car: 82.3%
• Worked at Home: 8.2%
• Other: 6.7%
• Walked: 2.9%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is essentially absent in Sierra County, versus 0.6% in New Mexico.

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

Biking is essentially absent in Sierra County, versus 0.5% in New Mexico.

Commute Mode Trends in Sierra County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sierra 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	89.4%	5.7%	0.0%	4.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	89.3%	5.4%	0.0%	5.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	91.4%	2.9%	0.2%	5.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	88.1%	6.3%	0.2%	4.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2013	90.5%	4.7%	0.2%	3.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	89.5%	4.3%	0.2%	5.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	91.4%	5.2%	0.2%	3.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	90.1%	4.9%	0.0%	3.9%	0.1%	0.0%	1.0%	0.0%
2017	91.3%	3.6%	0.2%	3.4%	0.1%	0.0%	1.4%	0.0%
2018	88.4%	4.2%	2.7%	2.3%	0.1%	0.0%	1.7%	0.5%
2019	86.4%	6.4%	1.4%	3.3%	0.4%	0.0%	1.6%	0.4%
2020	81.6%	6.7%	5.4%	3.4%	0.5%	0.0%	1.7%	0.6%
2021	82.7%	7.4%	5.7%	2.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.7%
2022	77.9%	8.8%	7.2%	3.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	2.3%
2023	82.5%	7.2%	5.8%	3.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	82.3%	8.2%	6.7%	2.9%	0.0%	0.0%	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 2011 at 91.4% and lowest in 2022 at 77.9%. Overall it fell from 89.4% in 2009 to 82.3% in 2024, down 7.1 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Sierra County: its share of workers rose from 5.7% in 2009 to 8.2% in 2024, up 2.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.7% to 2.9% of workers (down 1.8 percentage points).

Biking peaked at 2.3% in 2022 and has since fallen back to 0.0%.

Commute Start Times in Sierra County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sierra County?

The bars show when commuters in Sierra 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 Sierra County2.8% New Mexico4.6%	2.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Sierra County2.6% New Mexico3.5%	2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Sierra County6.8% New Mexico5.1%	6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Sierra County8.5% New Mexico8.7%	8.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Sierra County9.8% New Mexico10.1%	9.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Sierra County11.6% New Mexico15.5%	11.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Sierra County20.4% New Mexico14.8%	20.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Sierra County7.8% New Mexico11.1%	7.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Sierra County1.7% New Mexico4.5%	1.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Sierra County2.6% New Mexico6.0%	2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Sierra County6.6% New Mexico3.1%	6.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Sierra County0.6% New Mexico1.3%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Sierra County6.8% New Mexico6.3%	6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Sierra County11.2% New Mexico5.5%	11.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Sierra County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 20.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across New Mexico. Early starts are about as common as in New Mexico: 12.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.1% there. The morning rush looks much like New Mexico's: 49.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.8%) 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 Sierra 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 Sierra 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 Sierra 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.

• Sierra County
• New Mexico
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Sierra County	New Mexico	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:52 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:47 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sierra County were on the road by 7:42 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:37 AM). That goes against the trend across New Mexico, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Sierra County now leave 4 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 Sierra County has moved 15 minutes later.

How does Sierra County's commute time compare?

Metric	Sierra County	New Mexico	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.8 min	18.8 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	8.2%	12.2%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Sierra County is 11.8 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in New Mexico.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in New Mexico. 2.9% commute by walking, higher than the 1.9% in New Mexico.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau