Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union County spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 184 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% less time on the road than the South Carolina average of 22.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.2 minutes.

Union County holds about 0.5% of South Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,278 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	22.0 min	44.1 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,694	368
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.

Commute Time Map: South Carolina Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 22.0 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 2% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 71% of counties in South Carolina

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 3.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

• Car: 95.2%
• Worked at Home: 3.4% unusually low
• Walked: 0.6%
• Other: 0.5%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Taxi: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.4% in South Carolina.

Working from home is unusually rare in Union County: 3.4 times less than the South Carolina average (3.4% vs 11.5%).

Biking is essentially absent in Union County, versus 0.2% in South Carolina.

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
• Motorcycle
• Taxi
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Taxi	Public Transportation	Bicycle
2009	95.5%	1.6%	1.0%	1.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	95.0%	1.7%	1.2%	1.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	95.4%	1.9%	1.3%	1.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	95.3%	2.1%	1.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.8%	1.7%	1.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	96.4%	0.8%	1.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	97.2%	0.7%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	96.5%	1.4%	0.7%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	97.0%	1.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	96.4%	1.6%	0.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	95.9%	1.9%	1.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	95.7%	2.1%	1.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	95.3%	2.0%	1.1%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	95.1%	2.1%	1.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	95.0%	2.5%	1.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	95.2%	3.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	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 was highest in 2015 at 97.2% and lowest in 2010 at 95.0%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 95.5% in 2009 and 95.2% in 2024.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 1.6% in 2009 to 3.4% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Union County8.0% South Carolina5.0%	8.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Union County4.0% South Carolina3.7%	4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Union County7.4% South Carolina4.6%	7.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Union County7.9% South Carolina9.1%	7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Union County14.6% South Carolina10.5%	14.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Union County13.3% South Carolina15.3%	13.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Union County10.1% South Carolina12.6%	10.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Union County5.8% South Carolina11.1%	5.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Union County2.8% South Carolina5.2%	2.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Union County4.1% South Carolina6.1%	4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Union County1.3% South Carolina2.7%	1.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Union County1.9% South Carolina1.2%	1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Union County7.2% South Carolina6.3%	7.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Union County11.5% South Carolina6.6%	11.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Union County is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.5% across South Carolina. Early starts are more common than in South Carolina: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Carolina: 43.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.0%) 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 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 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.

• Union County
• South Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Union County	South Carolina	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:18 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). The shift is sharper than across South Carolina, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Union County now leave 20 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 11 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Union County in the whole series.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	South Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.0 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	3.4%	11.5%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is about the same as 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