Hidalgo County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Hidalgo County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Hidalgo County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 168 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 2.7 minutes.

Hidalgo County holds about 3.0% of Texas's population but accounts for roughly 2.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Hidalgo County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,079 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)
Hidalgo County	20.1 min	40.2 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,198	2,365
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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: Texas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 20.1 minutes to get to work in Hidalgo County. That's 10% 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 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Hidalgo County

• Car: 85.7%
• Worked at Home: 9.2%
• Other: 3.5%
• Walked: 1.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Public transit is unusually rare in Hidalgo County: 3.7 times less than the Texas average (0.2% vs 0.9%).

Commute Mode Trends in Hidalgo County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Hidalgo 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
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	90.9%	3.3%	3.5%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	90.3%	3.6%	3.9%	1.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	89.9%	4.1%	3.8%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	90.2%	3.9%	4.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	90.1%	4.1%	3.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	89.8%	4.3%	4.1%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	89.5%	4.6%	4.2%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	89.6%	4.4%	4.1%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	89.2%	4.9%	4.1%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	88.9%	5.5%	3.9%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	88.6%	5.8%	4.0%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	88.4%	6.3%	3.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	87.9%	7.2%	3.4%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	86.8%	7.9%	3.7%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	86.2%	8.6%	3.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	85.7%	9.2%	3.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	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 90.9% in 2009 to 85.7% in 2024, down 5.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Hidalgo County: its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 9.2% in 2024, up 5.9 percentage points.

Commute Start Times in Hidalgo County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Hidalgo County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Hidalgo County4.5% Texas5.5%	4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Hidalgo County3.1% Texas4.4%	3.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Hidalgo County3.2% Texas5.1%	3.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Hidalgo County7.0% Texas9.3%	7.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Hidalgo County6.9% Texas9.3%	6.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Hidalgo County16.6% Texas15.3%	16.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Hidalgo County15.5% Texas11.8%	15.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Hidalgo County12.9% Texas11.5%	12.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Hidalgo County3.9% Texas4.8%	3.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Hidalgo County6.9% Texas6.7%	6.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Hidalgo County3.6% Texas3.1%	3.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Hidalgo County1.9% Texas1.3%	1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Hidalgo County6.6% Texas5.8%	6.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Hidalgo County7.3% Texas6.2%	7.3%

Hidalgo County Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Hidalgo County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are less common than in Texas: 10.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 52.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.3%) 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 Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo County next to Texas 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.

• Hidalgo County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Hidalgo County	Texas	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:43 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:43 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:47 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Hidalgo County were on the road by 7:47 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:43 AM). The shift is sharper than across Texas, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Hidalgo County now leave 9 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 Hidalgo County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Hidalgo County's commute time compare?

Metric	Hidalgo County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 min	22.8 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	9.2%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Hidalgo County is 20.1 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau