Summerville Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Summerville, 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

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Summerville?

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

Commute Time Burden in Summerville: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Summerville spend about 56 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 232 hours, about 9.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% more time on the road than the South Carolina average of 22.3 minutes each way, a difference of 5.6 minutes.

Summerville holds about 0.8% of South Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Summerville would save about 93 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,881 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)
Summerville	27.9 min	55.8 min	232 hrs/yr	$7,203	3,692
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.

Summerville Commute Map

On average, it takes 27.9 minutes to get to work in Summerville. That's 24% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Summerville

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Summerville: 4.1 times more than the South Carolina average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Summerville: 105.2 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Summerville, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Summerville 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	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	94.9%	3.6%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	94.5%	3.5%	0.3%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2011	94.5%	4.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	93.5%	4.3%	0.2%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%
2013	92.9%	4.9%	0.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2014	92.9%	4.9%	0.1%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	92.8%	4.9%	0.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	93.3%	4.5%	0.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	93.3%	4.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	92.9%	4.3%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%	0.5%
2019	93.2%	3.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.6%	0.5%
2020	92.8%	4.6%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%
2021	91.3%	5.9%	0.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
2022	90.2%	7.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%
2023	88.9%	8.6%	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	85.7%	11.0%	1.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.9% in 2009 to 85.7% in 2024, down 9.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Summerville: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 11.0% in 2024, up 7.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Summerville

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Summerville?

The bars show when commuters in Summerville 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		7.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		13.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Summerville is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 13.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.5% across South Carolina. Early starts are more common than in South Carolina: 20.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Carolina: 43.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.0%) 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 Summerville, 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 Summerville 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 Summerville 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	Summerville	South Carolina	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:13 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:15 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:09 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Summerville were on the road by 7:11 AM, 14 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:26 AM). The shift is sharper than across South Carolina, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Summerville now leave 27 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 Summerville has moved 6 minutes earlier.

How does Summerville's commute time compare?

Metric	Summerville	South Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.9 min	22.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 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	11.0%	11.5%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Summerville is 27.9 minutes, longer than the 22.3 minutes in South Carolina.

0.5% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.4% in South Carolina. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in South Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Summerville, SC Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Summerville, SC compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Summerville, SC	42,751	27.9 min #2/2	11.0% #1/2	7:11 AM #1/2
North Charleston, SC	123,884	22.5 min	9.4%	7:21 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Summerville, South Carolina.

Is commuting expensive in Summerville, South Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 232 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,203 at a typical national wage. That's 25% more than the typical South Carolina commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM in Summerville, South Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.