Washington County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Washington County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Washington County spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 190 hours, about 7.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 5.9 minutes.

Washington 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 Washington County would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,358 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)
Washington County	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,895	768
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 22.8 minutes to get to work in Washington County. That's 2% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 75% of counties in New York

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Washington County

• Car: 88.4% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 8.0%
• Walked: 1.7% unusually low
• Other: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.3%
• Bicycle: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Driving is 61% more common in Washington County than the New York average (88.4% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in Washington County: 3.3 times less than the New York average (1.7% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Washington County: 68.3 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 21.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Washington County: 3.1 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 0.8%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Washington County: just 2.0%, 3.3 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Washington County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	92.1%	3.4%	2.9%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	91.7%	4.2%	2.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	91.1%	4.8%	2.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2012	90.8%	5.2%	2.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2013	90.8%	5.2%	2.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	89.5%	5.8%	3.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%
2015	89.7%	5.3%	3.1%	0.3%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%
2016	89.9%	4.9%	3.2%	0.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	90.8%	4.1%	3.3%	0.5%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	90.7%	4.3%	3.1%	0.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	90.5%	4.6%	3.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2020	90.6%	4.7%	3.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2021	89.5%	6.0%	2.5%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2022	88.3%	7.0%	2.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	87.7%	8.0%	2.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2024	88.4%	8.0%	1.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2023 at 87.7%. Overall it fell from 92.1% in 2009 to 88.4% in 2024, down 3.7 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Washington County: its share of workers rose from 3.4% in 2009 to 8.0% in 2024, up 4.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.9% to 1.7% of workers (down 1.2 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Washington County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Washington County?

The bars show when commuters in Washington 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 Washington County7.5% New York3.9%	7.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Washington County5.9% New York2.9%	5.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Washington County6.5% New York3.7%	6.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Washington County10.0% New York7.5%	10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Washington County12.2% New York8.1%	12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Washington County11.7% New York13.9%	11.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Washington County12.3% New York11.1%	12.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Washington County8.0% New York14.0%	8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Washington County3.9% New York7.7%	3.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Washington County3.7% New York9.5%	3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Washington County3.0% New York3.7%	3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Washington County1.7% New York1.7%	1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Washington County6.9% New York6.9%	6.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Washington County6.6% New York5.3%	6.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Washington County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 12.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.1% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 20.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New York: 44.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.0%) 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington 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.

• Washington County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Washington County	New York	United States
2009	7:25 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:25 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:30 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:33 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Washington County were on the road by 7:20 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:25 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Washington County now leave 18 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Washington County has moved 7 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Washington County in the whole series.

How does Washington County's commute time compare?

Metric	Washington County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.8 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.0%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Washington County is 22.8 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau