Carolina Forest Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Carolina Forest: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Carolina Forest spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 158 hours, about 6.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 15% less time on the road than the South Carolina average of 22.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.3 minutes.

Carolina Forest holds about 0.5% of South Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Carolina Forest would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,963 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)
Carolina Forest	19.0 min	38.0 min	158 hrs/yr	$4,908	3,100
South Carolina	22.3 min	44.5 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,753	1,499
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.

Carolina Forest Commute Map

On average, it takes 19.0 minutes to get to work in Carolina Forest. That's 15% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 10:00 AM – 10:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Carolina Forest

• Car: 85.9%
• Worked at Home: 11.9%
• Other: 1.6%
• Walked: 0.6%
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Carolina Forest: 397.3 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Carolina Forest: 275.1 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.4%).

Biking is unusually rare in Carolina Forest: 22.4 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Carolina Forest: just 0.6%, 3.1 times below the South Carolina average of 1.8%.

Commute Mode Trends in Carolina Forest, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Carolina Forest 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
• Walked
• Taxi
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	95.4%	3.2%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	97.0%	2.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	97.5%	2.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	97.2%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2013	97.8%	1.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	97.0%	2.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	95.5%	3.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	94.0%	4.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%
2017	92.1%	5.1%	1.4%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	91.0%	5.9%	1.6%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2019	92.6%	5.1%	1.1%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2020	92.4%	5.2%	1.4%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2021	91.8%	6.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	90.9%	6.9%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	88.3%	9.5%	1.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	85.9%	11.9%	1.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	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 2013 at 97.8%. Overall it fell from 95.4% in 2009 to 85.9% in 2024, down 9.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Carolina Forest: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 11.9% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Carolina Forest

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Carolina Forest?

The bars show when commuters in Carolina Forest 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 South Carolina for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Carolina Forest2.6% South Carolina5.0%	2.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Carolina Forest2.0% South Carolina3.7%	2.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Carolina Forest6.2% South Carolina4.6%	6.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Carolina Forest6.1% South Carolina9.1%	6.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Carolina Forest8.8% South Carolina10.5%	8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Carolina Forest11.2% South Carolina15.3%	11.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Carolina Forest7.0% South Carolina12.6%	7.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Carolina Forest10.9% South Carolina11.1%	10.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Carolina Forest10.2% South Carolina5.2%	10.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Carolina Forest9.2% South Carolina6.1%	9.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Carolina Forest11.0% South Carolina2.7%	11.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Carolina Forest1.9% South Carolina1.2%	1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Carolina Forest7.4% South Carolina6.3%	7.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Carolina Forest5.8% South Carolina6.6%	5.8%

Carolina Forest South Carolina Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Carolina Forest is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across South Carolina. Early starts are less common than in South Carolina: 10.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Carolina: 37.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (35.2%) 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 Carolina Forest, 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 Carolina Forest 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 Carolina Forest next to South Carolina 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.

• Carolina Forest
• South Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Carolina Forest	South Carolina	United States
2009	7:57 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:01 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:09 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:05 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:06 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:10 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:08 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:09 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:15 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Carolina Forest were on the road by 8:17 AM, 20 minutes later than in 2009 (7:57 AM). That goes against the trend across South Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Carolina Forest now leave 39 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Carolina Forest has moved 9 minutes later.

How does Carolina Forest's commute time compare?

Metric	Carolina Forest	South Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	19.0 min	22.3 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	10:00 AM – 10:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.9%	11.5%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Carolina Forest is 19.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.3 minutes in South Carolina.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in South Carolina. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in South Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau