Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union County spend about 23 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 96 hours, about 4.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 43% less time on the road than the Oregon average of 20.1 minutes each way, a difference of 8.6 minutes.

Union County holds about 0.6% of Oregon's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 38 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,190 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	11.5 min	23.0 min	96 hrs/yr	$2,974	265
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 11.5 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 49% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 5 fastest counties in Oregon

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 8.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

• Car: 81.6%
• Worked at Home: 8.5%
• Walked: 6.4%
• Other: 2.8%
• Bicycle: 0.4% unusually low
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.2% in Oregon.

Public transit is unusually rare in Union County: 8.3 times less than the Oregon average (0.3% vs 2.2%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.1% in Oregon.

Biking is unusually rare in Union County: 3.3 times less than the Oregon average (0.4% vs 1.3%).

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
• Walked
• Other
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	88.6%	5.0%	4.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	87.5%	5.6%	5.2%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	84.8%	6.4%	6.6%	0.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	83.0%	6.9%	7.2%	0.5%	1.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	82.9%	7.1%	6.9%	0.3%	2.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	82.1%	6.4%	8.0%	0.5%	1.9%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	82.3%	5.8%	8.1%	0.5%	2.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	83.2%	5.9%	7.7%	0.7%	1.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	85.3%	5.0%	7.1%	0.3%	1.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	85.8%	5.6%	7.0%	0.4%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	85.8%	6.1%	6.4%	0.5%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	86.1%	5.6%	6.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	84.8%	6.8%	6.0%	1.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	84.5%	7.2%	5.5%	1.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	84.3%	6.8%	5.6%	2.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	81.6%	8.5%	6.4%	2.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 88.6% in 2009 to 81.6% in 2024, down 7.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 5.0% in 2009 to 8.5% in 2024, up 3.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 0.9% to 0.4% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 8.1% in 2015 and has since fallen back to 6.4%.

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 Oregon for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Union County5.8% Oregon5.9%	5.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Union County3.2% Oregon3.8%	3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Union County6.8% Oregon5.0%	6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Union County9.2% Oregon7.6%	9.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Union County9.2% Oregon9.7%	9.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Union County14.9% Oregon13.0%	14.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Union County13.7% Oregon13.0%	13.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Union County7.5% Oregon10.6%	7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Union County4.9% Oregon5.8%	4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Union County6.2% Oregon7.2%	6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Union County1.7% Oregon3.7%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Union County1.9% Oregon1.8%	1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Union County8.2% Oregon7.1%	8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Union County6.8% Oregon5.7%	6.8%

Union County Oregon 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 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Oregon. Early starts are more common than in Oregon: 15.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Oregon's: 45.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.9%) 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 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.

• Union County
• Oregon
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Union County	Oregon	United States
2009	7:40 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:36 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:39 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:35 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:33 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:32 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:32 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:32 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:40 AM). That goes against the trend across Oregon, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Union County now leave 6 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 3 minutes later.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	Oregon	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.5 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	8.5%	19.0%	15.0%
Walked	6.4%	3.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	2.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is 11.5 minutes, shorter than the 20.1 minutes in Oregon.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.2% in Oregon. 6.4% commute by walking, higher than the 3.3% in Oregon.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau