Orleans County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Orleans County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Orleans County spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 185 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 6.6 minutes.

Orleans 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 Orleans County would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,288 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)
Orleans County	22.1 min	44.3 min	185 hrs/yr	$5,720	641
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 22.1 minutes to get to work in Orleans County. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Orleans County

• Car: 83.6% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 10.5%
• Walked: 2.9%
• Other: 1.5%
• Public Transportation: 0.6% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.4% unusually high
• Bicycle: 0.4%
• Taxi: 0.2% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Orleans County: 5.1 times more than the New York average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 52% more common in Orleans County than the New York average (83.6% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Orleans County: 34.8 times less than the New York average (0.6% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Orleans County: 4.3 times less than the New York average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

Commute Mode Trends in Orleans County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Orleans 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	93.5%	2.4%	2.1%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	93.6%	2.4%	2.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	93.0%	2.8%	2.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	93.8%	2.4%	1.8%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2013	93.5%	2.7%	1.5%	1.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	93.0%	3.3%	1.5%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2015	93.1%	2.8%	1.3%	1.4%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	92.2%	3.3%	1.9%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2017	91.1%	3.4%	2.2%	1.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	1.0%
2018	90.7%	3.2%	2.6%	1.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.9%
2019	89.8%	3.7%	3.3%	1.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%
2020	89.3%	4.3%	4.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%
2021	87.1%	6.4%	3.4%	1.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.8%	0.5%
2022	85.3%	8.4%	3.7%	1.0%	0.4%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%
2023	83.4%	10.7%	3.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%
2024	83.6%	10.5%	2.9%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2012 at 93.8% and lowest in 2023 at 83.4%. Overall it fell from 93.5% in 2009 to 83.6% in 2024, down 9.9 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Orleans County: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 10.5% in 2024, up 8.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.1% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 2.9%.

Commute Start Times in Orleans County

• 🧘 Rush-Hour DodgersThe 3rd-lowest share of rush-hour departures among New York's 62 counties: only 42.4% of commuters leave between 6:30 and 8:29 AM.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Orleans County?

The bars show when commuters in Orleans 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 Orleans County6.7% New York3.9%	6.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Orleans County6.4% New York2.9%	6.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Orleans County6.1% New York3.7%	6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Orleans County12.5% New York7.5%	12.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Orleans County11.5% New York8.1%	11.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Orleans County11.9% New York13.9%	11.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Orleans County12.0% New York11.1%	12.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Orleans County7.0% New York14.0%	7.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Orleans County4.3% New York7.7%	4.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Orleans County6.0% New York9.5%	6.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Orleans County1.4% New York3.7%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Orleans County1.2% New York1.7%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Orleans County5.9% New York6.9%	5.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Orleans County7.2% New York5.3%	7.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Orleans County is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 12.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 7.5% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 19.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New York: 42.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.7%) 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 Orleans 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 Orleans 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 Orleans 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.

• Orleans County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Orleans County	New York	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:17 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:17 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:17 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:19 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:19 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:19 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:15 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:17 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Orleans County were on the road by 7:17 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:22 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Orleans County now leave 20 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Orleans County's commute time compare?

Metric	Orleans County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.1 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 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	10.5%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Orleans County is 22.1 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 2.9% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau