Delaware County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Delaware County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Delaware County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 168 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 8.5 minutes.

Delaware County 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 Delaware County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,084 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)
Delaware County	20.2 min	40.3 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,210	524
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 20.2 minutes to get to work in Delaware County. That's 10% 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 12.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Delaware County

• Car: 79.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 12.5%
• Walked: 5.8%
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.8% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Delaware County: 3.0 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 45% more common in Delaware County than the New York average (79.7% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Delaware County: 26.9 times less than the New York average (0.8% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Delaware County, versus 0.7% in New York.

Biking is unusually rare in Delaware County: 4.4 times less than the New York average (0.2% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Delaware County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Delaware 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	84.5%	6.6%	7.0%	0.6%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	84.9%	6.7%	6.7%	0.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	84.6%	7.3%	6.2%	0.4%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	84.2%	7.2%	6.5%	0.6%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	85.3%	6.6%	5.8%	0.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	84.8%	6.5%	6.4%	0.6%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	84.6%	6.3%	6.6%	0.8%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	84.6%	6.3%	6.4%	0.9%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	84.3%	6.5%	6.2%	1.2%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	82.9%	6.8%	6.9%	1.7%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	83.5%	6.7%	6.3%	1.3%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	82.8%	7.3%	6.4%	1.5%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	81.1%	8.7%	7.2%	1.3%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	80.4%	10.2%	6.9%	0.7%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%
2023	80.2%	11.4%	6.3%	0.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	79.7%	12.5%	5.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.2%	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 2013 at 85.3%. Overall it fell from 84.5% in 2009 to 79.7% in 2024, down 4.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Delaware County: its share of workers rose from 6.6% in 2009 to 12.5% in 2024, up 5.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 7.0% to 5.8% of workers (down 1.2 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2019 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Delaware County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Delaware County?

The bars show when commuters in Delaware 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 Delaware County7.1% New York3.9%	7.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Delaware County5.2% New York2.9%	5.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Delaware County7.3% New York3.7%	7.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Delaware County7.4% New York7.5%	7.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Delaware County8.8% New York8.1%	8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Delaware County14.4% New York13.9%	14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Delaware County14.3% New York11.1%	14.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Delaware County8.5% New York14.0%	8.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Delaware County5.4% New York7.7%	5.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Delaware County5.0% New York9.5%	5.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Delaware County2.3% New York3.7%	2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Delaware County1.0% New York1.7%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Delaware County7.7% New York6.9%	7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Delaware County5.8% New York5.3%	5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Delaware County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 19.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush looks much like New York's: 45.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% 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 Delaware 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 Delaware 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 Delaware 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.

• Delaware County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

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

In 2024, half of commuters in Delaware County were on the road by 7:30 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:36 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Delaware County now leave 8 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Delaware County's commute time compare?

Metric	Delaware County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.2 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	12.5%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	5.8%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Delaware County is 20.2 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.8% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 5.8% commute by walking, higher than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau