Washington County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Washington County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Washington County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 139 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 6.2 minutes.

Washington County holds about 0.1% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Washington County would save about 55 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,718 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)
Washington County	16.6 min	33.3 min	139 hrs/yr	$4,295	848
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 16.6 minutes to get to work in Washington County. That's 26% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Washington County

• Car: 86.1%
• Worked at Home: 8.3%
• Walked: 3.3%
• Other: 2.0%
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Washington County: 4.5 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Washington County, versus 0.9% in Texas.

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Washington County: 5.6 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Washington County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Washington 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
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.8%	5.9%	3.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	91.0%	6.0%	2.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	91.2%	4.7%	2.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	92.1%	4.3%	2.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	92.4%	3.6%	2.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%
2014	92.9%	3.3%	2.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	93.7%	3.0%	1.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	95.7%	2.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	94.5%	3.5%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	93.7%	4.2%	0.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.8%	4.3%	1.1%	1.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	90.4%	5.8%	2.2%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.5%	7.4%	3.0%	3.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	85.9%	7.2%	3.8%	2.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	85.4%	8.1%	3.7%	2.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	86.1%	8.3%	3.3%	2.0%	0.3%	0.0%	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 2016 at 95.7% and lowest in 2023 at 85.4%. Overall it fell from 89.8% in 2009 to 86.1% in 2024, down 3.7 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Washington County: its share of workers rose from 5.9% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Washington County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Washington County?

The bars show when commuters in Washington 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 Washington County6.8% Texas5.5%	6.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Washington County1.9% Texas4.4%	1.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Washington County6.7% Texas5.1%	6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Washington County7.1% Texas9.3%	7.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Washington County8.8% Texas9.3%	8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Washington County16.0% Texas15.3%	16.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Washington County19.2% Texas11.8%	19.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Washington County8.2% Texas11.5%	8.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Washington County4.3% Texas4.8%	4.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Washington County5.9% Texas6.7%	5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Washington County2.8% Texas3.1%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Washington County0.5% Texas1.3%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Washington County7.2% Texas5.8%	7.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Washington County4.5% Texas6.2%	4.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Washington County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Texas. Early starts are about as common as in Texas: 15.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 52.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.0%) 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington 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.

• Washington County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Washington County	Texas	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:24 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:35 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:35 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:34 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Washington County were on the road by 7:34 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Texas, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Washington County now leave 4 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 Washington County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Washington County's commute time compare?

Metric	Washington County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.6 min	22.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 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	8.3%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	3.3%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Washington County is 16.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 3.3% commute by walking, higher than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau