Carbon County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Carbon County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Carbon County spend about 26 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 106 hours, about 4.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 33% less time on the road than the Utah average of 18.9 minutes each way, a difference of 6.1 minutes.

Carbon County holds about 0.6% of Utah's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Carbon County would save about 43 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,319 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)
Carbon County	12.8 min	25.5 min	106 hrs/yr	$3,298	505
Utah	18.9 min	37.8 min	158 hrs/yr	$4,885	1,192
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: Utah Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 12.8 minutes to get to work in Carbon County. That's 43% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 71% of counties in Utah

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Carbon County

• Car: 90.8%
• Worked at Home: 6.3%
• Other: 1.5%
• Walked: 1.1%
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Carbon County, versus 0.2% in Utah.

Public transit is unusually rare in Carbon County: 22.0 times less than the Utah average (0.1% vs 1.6%).

Biking is essentially absent in Carbon County, versus 0.5% in Utah.

Commute Mode Trends in Carbon County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Carbon 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
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	88.4%	4.3%	1.3%	4.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	1.2%
2010	91.5%	3.5%	1.0%	3.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	92.9%	2.7%	1.2%	2.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	92.4%	3.0%	1.0%	2.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	91.9%	3.0%	0.5%	3.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2014	93.5%	3.0%	0.5%	1.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2015	93.6%	2.6%	0.2%	2.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2016	92.4%	3.1%	0.2%	3.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2017	92.0%	3.3%	0.0%	3.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2018	91.0%	4.4%	0.2%	3.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2019	91.2%	4.1%	0.3%	3.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2020	91.4%	4.4%	0.3%	2.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2021	91.3%	5.0%	0.6%	2.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	90.5%	6.2%	0.6%	2.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	91.0%	5.5%	1.3%	1.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2024	90.8%	6.3%	1.5%	1.1%	0.1%	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 peaked in 2015 at 93.6%. Overall it rose from 88.4% in 2009 to 90.8% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Carbon County: its share of workers rose from 4.3% in 2009 to 6.3% in 2024, up 2.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.3% to 1.1% of workers (down 3.2 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Carbon County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Carbon County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Carbon County6.6% Utah4.8%	6.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Carbon County3.2% Utah3.6%	3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Carbon County7.8% Utah5.1%	7.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Carbon County7.5% Utah7.4%	7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Carbon County10.1% Utah8.4%	10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Carbon County9.7% Utah12.3%	9.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Carbon County15.1% Utah12.5%	15.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Carbon County11.2% Utah12.1%	11.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Carbon County4.5% Utah7.4%	4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Carbon County3.6% Utah7.7%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Carbon County2.8% Utah3.2%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Carbon County0.8% Utah1.5%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Carbon County10.0% Utah7.7%	10.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Carbon County7.0% Utah6.3%	7.0%

Carbon County Utah Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Carbon County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.5% across Utah. Early starts are more common than in Utah: 17.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Utah's: 46.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.2%) 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 Carbon 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 Carbon 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 Carbon County next to Utah 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.

• Carbon County
• Utah
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Carbon County	Utah	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:46 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:48 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:50 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:52 AM	7:48 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:51 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:53 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:56 AM	7:48 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:55 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:51 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:44 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:33 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:34 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Carbon County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:44 AM). That goes against the trend across Utah, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Carbon County now leave 2 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 Carbon County has moved 11 minutes earlier.

How does Carbon County's commute time compare?

Metric	Carbon County	Utah	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.8 min	18.9 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.3%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	1.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Carbon County is 12.8 minutes, shorter than the 18.9 minutes in Utah.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.6% in Utah. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Utah.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau