Wayne County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Wayne County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wayne County spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 187 hours, about 7.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 22% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 6.3 minutes.

Wayne County holds about 0.5% 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 Wayne County would save about 75 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,315 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)
Wayne County	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,787	1,313
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 22.4 minutes to get to work in Wayne County. That's about the same as the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 70% of counties in New York

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wayne County

• Car: 86.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 10.1%
• Walked: 1.8% unusually low
• Other: 1.1%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Driving is 58% more common in Wayne County than the New York average (86.7% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in Wayne County: 3.0 times less than the New York average (1.8% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Wayne County: 99.9 times less than the New York average (0.2% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Wayne County: 26.3 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Wayne County: 18.5 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.8%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Wayne County: just 1.9%, 3.4 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Wayne County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Wayne 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
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.6%	3.2%	2.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	92.7%	3.0%	2.9%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	92.7%	2.8%	3.1%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2012	92.6%	2.8%	3.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	93.3%	2.7%	2.8%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	92.9%	3.2%	2.3%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	92.4%	3.4%	2.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	92.3%	3.3%	2.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	92.7%	3.2%	2.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	92.5%	3.6%	1.9%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2019	93.3%	3.2%	2.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2020	91.8%	5.0%	2.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	90.7%	6.3%	1.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	89.2%	7.6%	2.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2023	87.9%	8.8%	1.9%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.7%	10.1%	1.8%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	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 93.3%. Overall it fell from 92.6% in 2009 to 86.7% in 2024, down 5.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wayne County: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 10.1% in 2024, up 6.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.8% to 1.8% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Wayne County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wayne County?

The bars show when commuters in Wayne 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 Wayne County2.5% New York3.9%	2.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Wayne County4.8% New York2.9%	4.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Wayne County7.1% New York3.7%	7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Wayne County11.3% New York7.5%	11.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Wayne County13.5% New York8.1%	13.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Wayne County16.9% New York13.9%	16.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Wayne County12.3% New York11.1%	12.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Wayne County8.5% New York14.0%	8.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Wayne County3.1% New York7.7%	3.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Wayne County4.1% New York9.5%	4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Wayne County1.4% New York3.7%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Wayne County2.0% New York1.7%	2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Wayne County7.2% New York6.9%	7.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Wayne County5.5% New York5.3%	5.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wayne County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 14.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 51.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.2%) 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 Wayne 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 Wayne 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 Wayne 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.

• Wayne County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Wayne County	New York	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:22 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:19 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:20 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:24 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wayne County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 3 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 Wayne 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 Wayne County has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Wayne County's commute time compare?

Metric	Wayne County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.4 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.1%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wayne County is 22.4 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau