Portage County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Portage 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, 7:54 PM

Is the commute in Portage County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 7:54 PM

Commute Time Burden in Portage County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Portage 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 8% more time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.7 minutes.

Portage County holds about 1.4% of Ohio's population but accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Portage County would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,353 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)
Portage County	22.8 min	45.5 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,883	1,529
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

Portage County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 22.8 minutes to get to work in Portage County. That's 2% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 74% of counties in Ohio

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 14.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Portage County

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Portage County: 9.6 times less than the Ohio average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Portage County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Portage 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	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	91.9%	3.3%	3.4%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	92.3%	3.0%	3.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	91.9%	3.3%	3.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	91.7%	3.5%	3.3%	0.6%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	91.6%	3.7%	3.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	91.8%	4.0%	2.8%	0.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	91.4%	4.3%	2.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	91.5%	4.5%	2.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	91.2%	4.8%	2.8%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	91.0%	5.3%	2.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	90.9%	5.4%	2.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	88.6%	7.8%	2.4%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.7%	9.8%	2.2%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	84.4%	11.8%	2.5%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	82.0%	13.5%	2.7%	0.7%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	80.6%	14.9%	2.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 92.3%. Overall it fell from 91.9% in 2009 to 80.6% in 2024, down 11.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Portage County: its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 14.9% in 2024, up 11.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.4% to 2.9% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2012 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Portage County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Portage County?

The bars show when commuters in Portage 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		6.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Portage County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.4% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 15.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Ohio: 42.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.3%) 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 Portage 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 Portage 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 Portage 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	Portage County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:42 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 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	7:38 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:35 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:35 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:34 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:36 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Portage County were on the road by 7:36 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:44 AM). The shift is sharper than across Ohio, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Portage County now leave 2 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Portage County's commute time compare?

Metric	Portage County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.8 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 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	14.9%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Portage County is 22.8 minutes, longer than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 2.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Portage County, OH Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Portage County, OH is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 161,954 residents against a local median of 226,483. The measure that sets Portage County, OH apart most is work from home: 14.9%, 26% above the local median of 11.8%.

The counties themselves spread 10.1% on work from home, so Portage County, OH sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Portage 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
Portage County, OH	161,954	22.8 min #5/6	14.9% #2/6	7:36 AM #4/6
Geauga County, OH	95,481	26.5 min	16.7%	7:35 AM
Summit County, OH	537,091	20.8 min	14.8%	7:43 AM
Stark County, OH	373,683	18.7 min	11.8%	7:34 AM
Mahoning County, OH	226,483	18.3 min	9.8%	7:46 AM
Trumbull County, OH	200,835	20.2 min	6.6%	7:33 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Portage County, Ohio.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 190 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,883 at a typical national wage. That's 8% more than the typical Ohio commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Portage County, Ohio?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Portage 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.

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).