Jefferson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 8:25 PM

How much time do drivers in Jefferson County spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:25 PM

Commute Time Burden in Jefferson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jefferson County spend about 41 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 2% less time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 0.4 minutes.

Jefferson County holds about 0.5% of Ohio's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jefferson County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,141 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)
Jefferson County	20.7 min	41.4 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,353	1,315
Ohio	21.1 min	42.2 min	176 hrs/yr	$5,447	1,212
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: Ohio Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Ohio

Hancock County (15.3 min)
Van Wert County (15.5 min)
Mercer County (16.0 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Ohio

Morgan County (32.5 min)
Vinton County (32.0 min)
Brown County (32.0 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Jefferson County

Click a county to open it Explore the map →

Average commute time

On average, it takes 20.7 minutes to get to work in Jefferson County. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Jefferson County

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Jefferson County, versus 0.1% in Ohio.

Public transit is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 3.2 times less than the Ohio average (0.3% vs 1.0%).

Biking is essentially absent in Jefferson County, versus 0.3% in Ohio.

Commute Mode Trends in Jefferson County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Jefferson 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.

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	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	90.8%	3.3%	4.6%	0.5%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	91.5%	2.8%	4.4%	0.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	91.3%	3.4%	3.9%	0.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	91.8%	3.2%	3.8%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	91.6%	3.2%	3.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	91.4%	3.2%	4.1%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	91.2%	3.3%	4.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	91.6%	3.0%	3.8%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	91.6%	3.8%	3.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	91.0%	4.1%	3.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	90.6%	4.5%	3.8%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	88.2%	6.3%	4.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	88.1%	7.1%	4.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	88.0%	7.4%	3.9%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.2%	8.1%	3.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.9%	8.7%	3.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	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 2012 at 91.8%. Overall it fell from 90.8% in 2009 to 86.9% in 2024, down 3.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jefferson County: its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 8.7% in 2024, up 5.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.6% to 3.6% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2017 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Jefferson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jefferson County?

The bars show when commuters in Jefferson 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 Ohio for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		7.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.3%

Jefferson County Ohio Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Jefferson County is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 13.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.5% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 17.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Ohio's: 45.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.6%) 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson County next to Ohio 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	Jefferson County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:42 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:35 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:31 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:37 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:38 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jefferson County were on the road by 7:38 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:43 AM). The shift is sharper than across Ohio, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Jefferson County 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 Jefferson County has moved 7 minutes later.

How does Jefferson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jefferson County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.7 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.7%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	3.6%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jefferson County is about the same as in Ohio.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 3.6% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Jefferson County, OH Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Jefferson County, OH is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 64,518 residents against a local median of 26,659. The measure that sets Jefferson County, OH apart most is work from home: 8.7%, 19% above the local median of 7.3%.

The counties themselves spread 3.6% on work from home, so Jefferson County, OH sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Jefferson County, OH has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Jefferson County, OH	64,518	20.7 min #3/6	8.7% #2/6	7:38 AM #5/6
Brooke County, WV	21,782	21.0 min	7.3%	7:30 AM
Hancock County, WV	28,177	20.3 min	10.1%	7:14 AM
Ohio County, WV	41,582	17.0 min	6.4%	7:51 AM
Harrison County, OH	14,306	28.1 min	6.6%	7:18 AM
Carroll County, OH	26,659	27.0 min	7.9%	7:13 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Jefferson County, Ohio.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Jefferson County, Ohio?

Commuters here spend an estimated 173 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,353 at a typical national wage. That's 2% less than the typical Ohio commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Jefferson County, Ohio?

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

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Jefferson County, Ohio?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.3% of commuters use it versus 1.0% in Ohio, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among counties in Ohio?

Among counties in Ohio, the shortest average commutes are in Hancock County (15.3 min), Van Wert County (15.5 min), Mercer County (16.0 min). The longest are in Morgan County (32.5 min), Vinton County (32.0 min), Brown County (32.0 min).