Central Islip Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Central Islip: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Central Islip spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 194 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 19% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 5.4 minutes.

Central Islip holds about 0.2% of New York's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Central Islip would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,411 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)
Central Islip	23.3 min	46.7 min	194 hrs/yr	$6,027	3,730
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.

Central Islip Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.3 minutes to get to work in Central Islip. That's 4% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Central Islip

• Car: 85.0% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.8%
• Public Transportation: 4.2% unusually low
• Other: 1.6%
• Bicycle: 1.1%
• Taxi: 0.8%
• Walked: 0.4% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Central Islip, versus 0.1% in New York.

Driving is 55% more common in Central Islip than the New York average (85.0% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in Central Islip: 12.8 times less than the New York average (0.4% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Central Islip: 5.1 times less than the New York average (4.2% vs 21.7%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Central Islip: just 1.6%, 4.1 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Central Islip, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Central Islip 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
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Walked
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Walked	Motorcycle
2009	86.7%	2.3%	7.2%	0.6%	0.1%	1.6%	1.4%	0.1%
2010	89.8%	1.2%	4.5%	1.8%	0.6%	1.0%	1.0%	0.1%
2011	89.4%	1.2%	3.8%	2.0%	0.2%	1.3%	2.1%	0.1%
2012	88.6%	1.7%	4.2%	1.8%	1.0%	0.3%	2.3%	0.1%
2013	88.0%	1.5%	5.3%	1.7%	0.9%	0.5%	2.1%	0.0%
2014	89.0%	1.4%	4.9%	1.5%	1.0%	0.5%	1.7%	0.1%
2015	89.2%	1.0%	6.3%	0.4%	0.7%	0.6%	1.8%	0.1%
2016	89.3%	1.2%	6.5%	0.3%	0.9%	0.7%	1.0%	0.1%
2017	90.6%	0.8%	6.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.5%	1.1%	0.1%
2018	88.3%	1.5%	7.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.6%	1.5%	0.1%
2019	87.5%	1.8%	7.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.5%	1.5%	0.0%
2020	88.4%	3.9%	5.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	1.0%	0.0%
2021	87.8%	5.6%	3.5%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	1.3%	0.0%
2022	87.8%	6.8%	3.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	1.0%	0.0%
2023	87.9%	6.7%	3.2%	0.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	85.0%	6.8%	4.2%	1.6%	1.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 90.6%. Overall it fell from 86.7% in 2009 to 85.0% in 2024, down 1.7 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Central Islip: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 6.8% in 2024, up 4.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 7.2% to 4.2% of workers (down 3.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Central Islip

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Central Islip?

The bars show when commuters in Central Islip 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 Central Islip5.8% New York3.9%	5.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Central Islip3.5% New York2.9%	3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Central Islip2.9% New York3.7%	2.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Central Islip7.3% New York7.5%	7.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Central Islip7.9% New York8.1%	7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Central Islip18.4% New York13.9%	18.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Central Islip6.8% New York11.1%	6.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Central Islip18.1% New York14.0%	18.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Central Islip4.6% New York7.7%	4.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Central Islip6.6% New York9.5%	6.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Central Islip2.1% New York3.7%	2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Central Islip1.4% New York1.7%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Central Islip8.5% New York6.9%	8.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Central Islip6.0% New York5.3%	6.0%

Central Islip New York Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Central Islip is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 18.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 12.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 51.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.5%) 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 Central Islip, 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 Central Islip 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 Central Islip 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.

• Central Islip
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Central Islip	New York	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:34 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:32 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:34 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:30 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:54 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:53 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:55 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Central Islip were on the road by 7:48 AM, 12 minutes later than in 2009 (7:36 AM). The shift is sharper than across New York, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Central Islip now leave 10 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 Central Islip has moved 11 minutes later.

How does Central Islip's commute time compare?

Metric	Central Islip	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.3 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.8%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.4%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	4.2%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Central Islip is 23.3 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

4.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 0.4% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau