Jefferson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 7:56 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Jefferson County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 7:56 PM

Commute Time Burden in Jefferson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jefferson County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 155 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 4.2 minutes.

Jefferson County holds about 0.8% of Texas's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jefferson County would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,925 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)
Jefferson County	18.6 min	37.3 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,812	1,424
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Texas

Loving County (3.2 min)
King County (5.8 min)
Terrell County (6.5 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Texas

Bandera County (38.6 min)
San Jacinto County (35.9 min)
Liberty County (33.6 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Jefferson County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 18.6 minutes to get to work in Jefferson County. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 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 Jefferson County

Working from home is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 4.2 times less than the Texas average (3.4% vs 14.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Jefferson County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Jefferson 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.

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	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	94.5%	1.7%	1.7%	0.8%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	94.3%	1.9%	1.7%	0.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	93.8%	2.2%	1.7%	0.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	94.2%	2.1%	1.6%	0.8%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	94.3%	2.1%	1.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	94.7%	1.9%	1.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	95.5%	1.6%	1.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	96.0%	1.4%	0.8%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	96.3%	1.6%	0.7%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	96.1%	1.7%	0.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	95.9%	1.8%	0.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	95.6%	2.1%	0.8%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	94.9%	2.4%	1.0%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	94.9%	2.8%	0.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	94.2%	3.1%	1.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	93.5%	3.4%	1.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 96.3%. Overall it fell from 94.5% in 2009 to 93.5% in 2024, down 1.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jefferson County: its share of workers rose from 1.7% in 2009 to 3.4% in 2024, up 1.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Jefferson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jefferson County?

The bars show when commuters in Jefferson 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		8.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jefferson County is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 13.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.5% across Texas. Early starts are more common than in Texas: 20.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Texas's: 46.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.6%) 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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.

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

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Jefferson County	Texas	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:24 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:24 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jefferson County were on the road by 7:30 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:29 AM). Texas followed the same path, with the typical start moving 1 minute later. Commuters in Jefferson County now leave 8 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 Jefferson County has moved 7 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Jefferson County in the whole series.

How does Jefferson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jefferson County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.6 min	22.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 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%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jefferson County is 18.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Jefferson County, TX Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Jefferson County, TX is the 2nd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 253,852 residents against a local median of 85,306. Where Jefferson County, TX breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 50% below the local median of 6.8% at 3.4%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 18.6 min against a local median of 28.6 min, 35% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 35% below the local median it puts Jefferson County, TX at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 7.8% on work from home, so Jefferson County, TX sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Jefferson County, TX has the 6th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Jefferson County, TX	253,852	18.6 min #1/6	3.4% #6/6	7:30 AM #6/6
Orange County, TX	85,306	22.1 min	3.9%	7:03 AM
Hardin County, TX	57,642	30.4 min	4.5%	7:00 AM
Chambers County, TX	51,498	28.6 min	7.1%	6:48 AM
Liberty County, TX	103,380	33.6 min	6.8%	6:44 AM
Galveston County, TX	358,877	23.5 min	11.7%	7:26 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Jefferson County, Texas.

Is commuting expensive in Jefferson County, Texas?

Commuters here spend an estimated 155 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,812 at a typical national wage. That's 18% less than the typical Texas commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Jefferson County, Texas?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Jefferson County, Texas. 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.

Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among counties in Texas?

Among counties in Texas, the shortest average commutes are in Loving County (3.3 min), King County (5.8 min), Terrell County (6.5 min). The longest are in Bandera County (38.6 min), San Jacinto County (35.9 min), Liberty County (33.6 min).