Montgomery County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Montgomery County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Montgomery County spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 7.7 minutes.

Montgomery County holds about 0.3% 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 Montgomery County would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,169 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)
Montgomery County	21.0 min	42.0 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,422	530
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 21.0 minutes to get to work in Montgomery County. That's 6% 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 9.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Montgomery County

• Car: 86.5% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 9.4%
• Walked: 2.7%
• Taxi: 0.6%
• Other: 0.5%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Montgomery County, versus 0.1% in New York.

Driving is 57% more common in Montgomery County than the New York average (86.5% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Montgomery County: 84.7 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 21.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Montgomery County: 20.8 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Montgomery County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Montgomery 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
• Taxi
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Taxi	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.2%	3.9%	3.6%	0.3%	1.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	89.0%	4.5%	3.4%	0.1%	2.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	89.7%	3.9%	2.9%	0.3%	2.0%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	89.8%	3.6%	3.2%	0.4%	1.7%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	90.9%	3.8%	2.5%	0.6%	1.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	90.0%	3.8%	3.1%	0.9%	1.0%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	89.3%	3.3%	3.8%	1.0%	0.9%	1.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	88.8%	3.5%	4.2%	1.0%	0.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	89.1%	3.7%	3.6%	0.9%	1.1%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	87.5%	4.2%	4.7%	1.0%	1.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	87.0%	4.2%	4.1%	1.7%	1.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%
2020	86.9%	5.5%	3.7%	1.6%	1.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%
2021	86.9%	6.5%	2.8%	1.7%	1.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2022	85.5%	7.6%	3.5%	1.6%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%
2023	86.4%	7.9%	2.5%	1.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2024	86.5%	9.4%	2.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.3%	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 2013 at 90.9% and lowest in 2022 at 85.5%. Overall it fell from 89.2% in 2009 to 86.5% in 2024, down 2.7 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Montgomery County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 9.4% in 2024, up 5.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.6% to 2.7% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Taking a taxi peaked at 1.8% in 2023 and has since fallen back to 0.6%.

Commute Start Times in Montgomery County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Montgomery County?

The bars show when commuters in Montgomery 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 Montgomery County7.3% New York3.9%	7.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Montgomery County6.6% New York2.9%	6.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Montgomery County6.3% New York3.7%	6.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Montgomery County6.5% New York7.5%	6.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Montgomery County9.4% New York8.1%	9.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Montgomery County15.2% New York13.9%	15.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Montgomery County12.3% New York11.1%	12.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Montgomery County9.5% New York14.0%	9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Montgomery County4.2% New York7.7%	4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Montgomery County3.6% New York9.5%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Montgomery County2.4% New York3.7%	2.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Montgomery County0.9% New York1.7%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Montgomery County7.9% New York6.9%	7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Montgomery County8.0% New York5.3%	8.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Montgomery County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 20.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush looks much like New York's: 46.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.7%) 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 Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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.

• Montgomery County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Montgomery County	New York	United States
2009	7:30 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	7:28 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 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	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:27 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Montgomery County were on the road by 7:27 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:30 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Montgomery County now leave 11 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Montgomery County's commute time compare?

Metric	Montgomery County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 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	9.4%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.7%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Montgomery County is 21.0 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 2.7% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau