Potter County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Potter County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Potter County spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 149 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the Pennsylvania average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 4.5 minutes.

Potter County holds about 0.1% of Pennsylvania's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Potter County would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,842 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)
Potter County	17.8 min	35.7 min	149 hrs/yr	$4,605	489
Pennsylvania	22.4 min	44.7 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,779	1,152
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: Pennsylvania Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.8 minutes to get to work in Potter County. That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 82% of counties in Pennsylvania

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Potter County

• Car: 82.4%
• Worked at Home: 10.7%
• Walked: 6.1%
• Other: 0.5%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Potter County, versus 0.1% in Pennsylvania.

Public transit is unusually rare in Potter County: 30.5 times less than the Pennsylvania average (0.1% vs 3.6%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Potter County: 6953.6 times less than the Pennsylvania average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Potter County: 5.1 times less than the Pennsylvania average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Potter County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Potter 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	88.5%	5.6%	4.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	87.7%	5.7%	5.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	87.5%	5.4%	5.4%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	88.2%	4.5%	6.0%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	88.1%	4.5%	6.0%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	88.3%	4.3%	6.0%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	89.9%	4.2%	4.7%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	89.6%	4.4%	5.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	89.0%	4.7%	5.1%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	88.4%	5.2%	4.6%	1.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	88.0%	5.0%	5.2%	1.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	84.8%	7.4%	6.0%	1.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	83.4%	7.9%	6.8%	1.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	83.9%	8.1%	6.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	82.9%	9.6%	6.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	82.4%	10.7%	6.1%	0.5%	0.1%	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 2015 at 89.9%. Overall it fell from 88.5% in 2009 to 82.4% in 2024, down 6.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Potter County: its share of workers rose from 5.6% in 2009 to 10.7% in 2024, up 5.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Potter County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Potter County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Potter County6.3% Pennsylvania5.3%	6.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Potter County4.4% Pennsylvania3.9%	4.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Potter County5.4% Pennsylvania5.3%	5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Potter County11.9% Pennsylvania8.9%	11.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Potter County10.0% Pennsylvania10.1%	10.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Potter County14.3% Pennsylvania13.8%	14.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Potter County15.8% Pennsylvania11.4%	15.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Potter County9.7% Pennsylvania10.9%	9.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Potter County3.7% Pennsylvania5.8%	3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Potter County3.0% Pennsylvania6.1%	3.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Potter County1.8% Pennsylvania2.7%	1.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Potter County0.7% Pennsylvania1.4%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Potter County5.9% Pennsylvania7.6%	5.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Potter County7.1% Pennsylvania6.9%	7.1%

Potter County Pennsylvania Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Potter County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.4% across Pennsylvania. Early starts are more common than in Pennsylvania: 16.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.4% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Pennsylvania: 49.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.5%) 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 Potter 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 Potter 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 Potter County next to Pennsylvania 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.

• Potter County
• Pennsylvania
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Potter County	Pennsylvania	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:28 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:25 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Potter County were on the road by 7:25 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Pennsylvania, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Potter County now leave 13 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 Potter County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Potter County's commute time compare?

Metric	Potter County	Pennsylvania	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.8 min	22.4 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.7%	15.6%	15.0%
Walked	6.1%	3.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	3.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Potter County is 17.8 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Pennsylvania.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.6% in Pennsylvania. 6.1% commute by walking, higher than the 3.2% in Pennsylvania.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau