Cayuga County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Cayuga County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cayuga County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 155 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 35% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 10.1 minutes.

Cayuga County holds about 0.4% of New York's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cayuga County would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,925 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)
Cayuga County	18.6 min	37.3 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,812	689
New York	28.7 min	57.4 min	239 hrs/yr	$7,414	1,586
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 York Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.6 minutes to get to work in Cayuga County. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Cayuga County

• Car: 86.9% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 7.7%
• Walked: 3.7%
• Other: 1.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Driving is 58% more common in Cayuga County than the New York average (86.9% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Cayuga County: 76.2 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Cayuga County: 23.1 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Cayuga County: 9.4 times less than the New York average (0.1% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Cayuga County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Cayuga 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	89.1%	4.2%	4.5%	0.6%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	89.2%	3.9%	4.6%	0.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	89.9%	3.9%	4.1%	0.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	90.6%	3.7%	3.7%	0.5%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	90.2%	3.8%	3.9%	0.7%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	90.6%	3.6%	3.8%	0.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	90.1%	4.1%	3.8%	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	90.2%	3.5%	4.1%	0.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	89.9%	3.4%	4.3%	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	90.4%	3.4%	4.1%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2019	89.1%	4.1%	4.2%	1.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	89.4%	4.3%	3.9%	1.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	88.0%	5.6%	3.5%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	87.6%	6.4%	3.7%	1.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	87.6%	6.6%	3.7%	1.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	86.9%	7.7%	3.7%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 90.6%. Overall it fell from 89.1% in 2009 to 86.9% in 2024, down 2.2 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cayuga County: its share of workers rose from 4.2% in 2009 to 7.7% in 2024, up 3.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.5% to 3.7% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Cayuga County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cayuga County?

The bars show when commuters in Cayuga 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 York for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Cayuga County4.3% New York3.9%	4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Cayuga County4.5% New York2.9%	4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Cayuga County4.9% New York3.7%	4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Cayuga County8.2% New York7.5%	8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Cayuga County13.9% New York8.1%	13.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Cayuga County14.7% New York13.9%	14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Cayuga County14.7% New York11.1%	14.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Cayuga County7.8% New York14.0%	7.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Cayuga County4.9% New York7.7%	4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Cayuga County4.2% New York9.5%	4.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Cayuga County2.3% New York3.7%	2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Cayuga County0.9% New York1.7%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Cayuga County8.3% New York6.9%	8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Cayuga County6.3% New York5.3%	6.3%

Cayuga County New York Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Cayuga County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 13.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 51.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.1%) 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 Cayuga 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 Cayuga 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 Cayuga County next to New York 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.

• Cayuga County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Cayuga County	New York	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:32 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:33 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:35 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:36 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:29 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cayuga County were on the road by 7:29 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:33 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Cayuga County now leave 9 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Cayuga County's commute time compare?

Metric	Cayuga County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.6 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.7%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	3.7%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Cayuga County is 18.6 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 3.7% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau