Spartanburg Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Spartanburg, South Carolina: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:19 PM

Is the commute in Spartanburg longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:19 PM

Commute Time Burden in Spartanburg: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Spartanburg spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 147 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the South Carolina average of 22.3 minutes each way, a difference of 4.6 minutes.

Spartanburg holds about 0.7% of South Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Spartanburg would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,829 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)
Spartanburg	17.7 min	35.4 min	147 hrs/yr	$4,571	3,827
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.

Spartanburg Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Spartanburg. That's 21% 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 6.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Spartanburg

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Spartanburg: 70.9 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Spartanburg, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Spartanburg 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	88.7%	3.0%	5.4%	1.0%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	89.0%	2.9%	5.1%	1.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	90.5%	3.0%	3.4%	1.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.4%	0.3%
2012	90.3%	3.3%	3.6%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.4%
2013	90.9%	3.0%	3.9%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%
2014	90.8%	3.0%	3.4%	1.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%
2015	90.9%	2.9%	4.0%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%
2016	90.5%	3.4%	3.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	90.5%	3.9%	3.4%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	90.9%	3.9%	3.1%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2019	91.0%	4.1%	2.7%	1.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	91.1%	4.6%	1.9%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2021	89.8%	5.4%	2.3%	0.9%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	88.9%	5.6%	2.7%	0.8%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2023	88.5%	6.7%	2.1%	0.9%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	88.8%	6.8%	2.3%	0.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2020 at 91.1% and lowest in 2023 at 88.5%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 88.7% in 2009 and 88.8% in 2024.

Working from home gained the most ground in Spartanburg: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 6.8% in 2024, up 3.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.4% to 2.3% of workers (down 3.1 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in Spartanburg

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Spartanburg?

The bars show when commuters in Spartanburg 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		3.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		10.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Spartanburg is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across South Carolina. Early starts are about as common as in South Carolina: 14.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Carolina: 45.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (29.2%) 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 Spartanburg, 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 Spartanburg 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 Spartanburg 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Spartanburg	South Carolina	United States
2009	8:06 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:01 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:00 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:56 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:55 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:05 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:02 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:58 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:57 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:49 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Spartanburg were on the road by 7:47 AM, 18 minutes earlier than in 2009 (8:06 AM). The shift is sharper than across South Carolina, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Spartanburg now leave 10 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 Spartanburg has moved 9 minutes earlier.

How does Spartanburg's commute time compare?

Metric	Spartanburg	South Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.8%	11.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.9%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Spartanburg is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 22.3 minutes in South Carolina.

0.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.4% in South Carolina. 2.3% commute by walking, higher than the 1.6% in South Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Is commuting expensive in Spartanburg, South Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 147 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,571 at a typical national wage. That's 21% less than the typical South Carolina commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Spartanburg, South Carolina?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.