Umatilla County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Umatilla County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Umatilla County spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 133 hours, about 5.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the Oregon average of 20.1 minutes each way, a difference of 4.1 minutes.

Umatilla County holds about 1.9% of Oregon's population but accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Umatilla County would save about 53 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,653 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)
Umatilla County	16.0 min	32.0 min	133 hrs/yr	$4,133	611
Oregon	20.1 min	40.3 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,203	967
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: Oregon Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 16.0 minutes to get to work in Umatilla County. That's 29% 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 7.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Umatilla County

• Car: 88.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 7.1%
• Walked: 3.0%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1%

Driving is 22% more common in Umatilla County than the Oregon average (88.7% vs 72.9%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Umatilla County: 7.3 times less than the Oregon average (0.3% vs 2.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Umatilla County: 17.4 times less than the Oregon average (0.1% vs 1.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Umatilla County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Umatilla 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	91.5%	3.0%	3.1%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2010	92.0%	3.0%	3.2%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	91.6%	3.7%	3.0%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	90.9%	3.5%	4.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.5%
2013	90.9%	3.5%	4.1%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2014	91.2%	3.1%	4.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2015	91.2%	3.1%	4.2%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2016	91.6%	2.9%	4.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2017	92.7%	3.0%	2.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	92.2%	3.3%	2.9%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2019	93.2%	2.9%	2.2%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2020	92.8%	3.5%	2.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2021	91.4%	4.8%	1.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2022	90.7%	5.0%	2.4%	0.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2023	89.9%	5.6%	2.3%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2024	88.7%	7.1%	3.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2019 at 93.2%. Overall it fell from 91.5% in 2009 to 88.7% in 2024, down 2.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Umatilla County: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 7.1% in 2024, up 4.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

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

Walking peaked at 4.2% in 2015 and has since fallen back to 3.0%.

Commute Start Times in Umatilla County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Umatilla County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Umatilla County8.8% Oregon5.9%	8.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Umatilla County5.4% Oregon3.8%	5.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Umatilla County10.5% Oregon5.0%	10.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Umatilla County8.2% Oregon7.6%	8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Umatilla County8.6% Oregon9.7%	8.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Umatilla County14.6% Oregon13.0%	14.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Umatilla County12.5% Oregon13.0%	12.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Umatilla County6.1% Oregon10.6%	6.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Umatilla County4.0% Oregon5.8%	4.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Umatilla County2.4% Oregon7.2%	2.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Umatilla County3.0% Oregon3.7%	3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Umatilla County1.0% Oregon1.8%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Umatilla County6.9% Oregon7.1%	6.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Umatilla County8.0% Oregon5.7%	8.0%

Umatilla County Oregon Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Umatilla County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Oregon. Early starts are more common than in Oregon: 24.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Oregon: 41.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.3% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.2%) 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 Umatilla 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 Umatilla 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 Umatilla County next to Oregon 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.

• Umatilla County
• Oregon
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Umatilla County	Oregon	United States
2009	7:28 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:17 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:15 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Umatilla County were on the road by 7:18 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:28 AM). That goes against the trend across Oregon, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Umatilla County now leave 20 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Umatilla County's commute time compare?

Metric	Umatilla County	Oregon	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.0 min	20.1 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	7.1%	19.0%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	3.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	2.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Umatilla County is 16.0 minutes, shorter than the 20.1 minutes in Oregon.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.2% in Oregon. 3.0% commute by walking, lower than the 3.3% in Oregon.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau