West Seneca Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in West Seneca: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in West Seneca spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 173 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 8.0 minutes.

West Seneca 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 West Seneca would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,144 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)
West Seneca	20.8 min	41.5 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,361	2,914
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.

West Seneca Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.8 minutes to get to work in West Seneca. That's 7% 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 10.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in West Seneca

• Car: 87.4% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 10.2%
• Other: 1.0%
• Walked: 0.5% unusually low
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Driving is 59% more common in West Seneca than the New York average (87.4% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in West Seneca: 11.2 times less than the New York average (0.5% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in West Seneca: 51.2 times less than the New York average (0.4% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in West Seneca: 189.9 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in West Seneca: 3.2 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 0.8%).

Few people walk or bike to work in West Seneca: just 0.8%, 8.5 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in West Seneca, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in West Seneca 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
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	95.9%	1.5%	0.5%	1.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	95.6%	1.2%	0.5%	1.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	94.7%	1.4%	0.5%	2.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	94.6%	1.6%	0.5%	2.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	94.1%	1.6%	0.5%	2.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	94.3%	1.8%	0.5%	2.1%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	94.7%	2.0%	0.4%	1.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	95.2%	2.0%	0.3%	1.3%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	95.7%	1.7%	0.2%	1.2%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	95.1%	2.3%	0.3%	1.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	94.4%	2.6%	0.5%	1.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	91.9%	5.0%	0.9%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	90.0%	7.2%	0.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	88.1%	8.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	87.4%	10.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	87.4%	10.2%	1.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 95.9% in 2009 to 87.4% in 2024, down 8.5 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in West Seneca: its share of workers rose from 1.5% in 2009 to 10.2% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.3% to 0.5% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in West Seneca

What Time Do People Leave for Work in West Seneca?

The bars show when commuters in West Seneca 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 West Seneca3.6% New York3.9%	3.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM West Seneca2.3% New York2.9%	2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM West Seneca4.5% New York3.7%	4.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM West Seneca8.6% New York7.5%	8.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM West Seneca12.8% New York8.1%	12.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM West Seneca14.6% New York13.9%	14.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM West Seneca13.2% New York11.1%	13.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM West Seneca10.1% New York14.0%	10.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM West Seneca6.0% New York7.7%	6.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM West Seneca6.7% New York9.5%	6.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM West Seneca2.2% New York3.7%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM West Seneca0.9% New York1.7%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM West Seneca7.8% New York6.9%	7.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM West Seneca6.8% New York5.3%	6.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in West Seneca is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across New York. Early starts are about as common as in New York: 10.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 50.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.4%) 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 West Seneca, 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 West Seneca 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 West Seneca 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.

• West Seneca
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	West Seneca	New York	United States
2009	7:45 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:46 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:46 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:41 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:44 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:42 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:45 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:43 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:40 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:38 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in West Seneca were on the road by 7:38 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:45 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in West Seneca now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in West Seneca has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for West Seneca in the whole series.

How does West Seneca's commute time compare?

Metric	West Seneca	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.8 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	10.2%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in West Seneca is 20.8 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau