Syracuse Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Syracuse, New York: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:11 PM

Is the commute in Syracuse longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:11 PM

Commute Time Burden in Syracuse: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Syracuse spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 133 hours, about 5.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 44% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 12.8 minutes.

Syracuse holds about 0.7% of New York's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Syracuse would save about 53 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,646 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)
Syracuse	15.9 min	31.9 min	133 hrs/yr	$4,116	2,299
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.

Syracuse Commute Map

On average, it takes 15.9 minutes to get to work in Syracuse. That's 29% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 12.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Syracuse

Driving is 24% more common in Syracuse than the New York average (68.2% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Syracuse: 3.4 times less than the New York average (6.3% vs 21.7%).

Commute Mode Trends in Syracuse, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Syracuse 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	77.4%	2.7%	10.1%	7.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.8%	0.2%
2010	76.4%	3.0%	10.7%	7.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.9%	0.3%
2011	75.5%	2.9%	10.8%	8.2%	1.2%	0.1%	1.0%	0.2%
2012	75.4%	2.9%	10.4%	8.6%	1.1%	0.0%	1.2%	0.3%
2013	75.3%	3.1%	10.8%	8.0%	1.3%	0.0%	1.3%	0.2%
2014	73.9%	3.4%	11.4%	8.6%	1.4%	0.1%	1.2%	0.1%
2015	73.8%	3.1%	11.1%	9.4%	1.2%	0.1%	1.1%	0.1%
2016	73.9%	3.2%	11.0%	9.5%	1.1%	0.1%	1.2%	0.1%
2017	73.7%	3.3%	11.3%	9.6%	0.9%	0.1%	1.0%	0.1%
2018	74.2%	3.7%	10.6%	9.5%	0.7%	0.1%	1.1%	0.1%
2019	74.7%	4.1%	9.9%	8.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.9%	0.1%
2020	72.4%	6.2%	10.4%	8.0%	1.6%	0.4%	0.8%	0.1%
2021	71.6%	7.8%	9.8%	7.6%	1.6%	0.6%	0.9%	0.1%
2022	70.0%	9.4%	9.5%	7.4%	1.8%	0.8%	1.1%	0.2%
2023	68.9%	10.5%	9.9%	6.5%	2.4%	0.9%	0.9%	0.1%
2024	68.2%	12.1%	9.3%	6.3%	2.0%	1.1%	0.9%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 77.4% in 2009 to 68.2% in 2024, down 9.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Syracuse: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 12.1% in 2024, up 9.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 7.8% to 6.3% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 11.4% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 9.3%.

Commute Start Times in Syracuse

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Syracuse?

The bars show when commuters in Syracuse 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		3.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		8.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		10.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Syracuse is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 11.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.1% across New York. Early starts are less common than in New York: 9.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New York: 42.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (34.7%) 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 Syracuse, 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 Syracuse 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 Syracuse 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Syracuse	New York	United States
2009	8:03 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:08 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:09 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:09 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:09 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:09 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:10 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:10 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:09 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:10 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:08 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:05 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:05 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:08 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:09 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:11 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Syracuse were on the road by 8:11 AM, 8 minutes later than in 2009 (8:03 AM). The shift is sharper than across New York, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Syracuse now leave 34 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 Syracuse has moved 3 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Syracuse in the whole series.

How does Syracuse's commute time compare?

Metric	Syracuse	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.9 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 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	12.1%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	9.3%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	6.3%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Syracuse is 15.9 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

6.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 9.3% commute by walking, higher than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Syracuse, New York.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Syracuse, New York?

Commuters here spend an estimated 133 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,116 at a typical national wage. That's 44% less than the typical New York commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Syracuse, New York?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Syracuse, New York. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Syracuse, New York?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 6.3% of commuters use it versus 21.7% in New York, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.