Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union County spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 195 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 11% more time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 2.4 minutes.

Union County holds about 0.6% of Ohio's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,423 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)
Union County	23.4 min	46.9 min	195 hrs/yr	$6,057	1,182
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

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 23.4 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 5% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 78% 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 21.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

• Car: 75.9%
• Worked at Home: 21.6%
• Other: 0.8%
• Public Transportation: 0.7%
• Walked: 0.5% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.3% unusually high
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Union County: 3.8 times more than the Ohio average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Walking is unusually rare in Union County: 4.3 times less than the Ohio average (0.5% vs 2.0%).

Biking is unusually rare in Union County: 4.6 times less than the Ohio average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Union County: just 0.5%, 4.3 times below the Ohio average of 2.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Union County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Public Transportation	Walked	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	95.0%	3.1%	0.2%	0.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	94.5%	3.5%	0.2%	0.2%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	94.3%	3.7%	0.2%	0.2%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	93.9%	4.0%	0.2%	0.2%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	93.0%	4.9%	0.2%	0.2%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	92.3%	5.8%	0.2%	0.2%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	92.0%	6.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	92.4%	5.8%	0.2%	0.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	92.8%	5.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	92.7%	5.5%	0.1%	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.3%	5.5%	0.4%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	86.7%	11.2%	0.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	81.2%	17.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	79.2%	18.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	77.6%	19.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	75.9%	21.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 95.0% in 2009 to 75.9% in 2024, down 19.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 3.1% in 2009 to 21.6% in 2024, up 18.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 16.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.0% to 0.5% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Union County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Union County?

The bars show when commuters in Union 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	12:00-4:59 AM Union County4.8% Ohio5.2%	4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Union County6.5% Ohio3.9%	6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Union County6.6% Ohio5.3%	6.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Union County8.3% Ohio8.4%	8.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Union County10.0% Ohio10.1%	10.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Union County14.7% Ohio13.4%	14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Union County11.9% Ohio12.2%	11.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Union County10.5% Ohio10.5%	10.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Union County4.8% Ohio5.5%	4.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Union County4.5% Ohio6.0%	4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Union County2.2% Ohio2.8%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Union County0.6% Ohio1.5%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Union County8.1% Ohio7.7%	8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Union County6.5% Ohio7.8%	6.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Union County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.4% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 18.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Ohio's: 47.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.8%) 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 Union 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 Union 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 Union 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.

• Union County
• Ohio
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Union County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:18 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:28 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (7:23 AM). That goes against the trend across Ohio, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Union County now leave 10 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 Union County has moved 7 minutes later.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.4 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	21.6%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is 23.4 minutes, longer than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau