Bedford County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Bedford County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Bedford County spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 195 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% more time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 0.2 minutes.

Bedford County holds about 0.9% of Virginia's population and accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Bedford County would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,416 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)
Bedford County	23.4 min	46.8 min	195 hrs/yr	$6,040	1,119
Virginia	23.2 min	46.3 min	193 hrs/yr	$5,986	1,531
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: Virginia Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 23.4 minutes to get to work in Bedford County. That's 4% longer 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 12.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Bedford County

• Car: 85.5%
• Worked at Home: 12.8%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Other: 0.6%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Bedford County: 35.3 times less than the Virginia average (0.1% vs 2.3%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Bedford County: 51.5 times less than the Virginia average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Bedford County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Bedford 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
• Motorcycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	93.5%	3.9%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	93.8%	4.0%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	93.5%	3.9%	0.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	93.7%	3.9%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	93.8%	3.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	93.5%	3.8%	0.6%	1.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	93.2%	4.0%	0.8%	1.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	93.5%	3.9%	0.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	93.0%	4.3%	1.0%	1.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	92.9%	4.4%	1.2%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	93.2%	4.5%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	92.6%	5.4%	1.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.9%	7.1%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	88.8%	9.0%	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	87.0%	11.0%	0.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	85.5%	12.8%	0.8%	0.6%	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. Its share peaked in 2010 at 93.8%. Overall it fell from 93.5% in 2009 to 85.5% in 2024, down 8.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Bedford County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 12.8% in 2024, up 8.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Bedford County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Bedford County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Bedford County4.7% Virginia5.0%	4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Bedford County4.7% Virginia4.0%	4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Bedford County5.6% Virginia5.0%	5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Bedford County8.9% Virginia8.7%	8.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Bedford County11.4% Virginia9.2%	11.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Bedford County14.6% Virginia14.2%	14.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Bedford County14.5% Virginia12.1%	14.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Bedford County10.9% Virginia12.1%	10.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Bedford County5.9% Virginia6.4%	5.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Bedford County6.3% Virginia7.2%	6.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Bedford County3.3% Virginia3.0%	3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Bedford County0.9% Virginia1.4%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Bedford County3.9% Virginia6.0%	3.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Bedford County4.5% Virginia5.7%	4.5%

Bedford County Virginia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Bedford County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across Virginia. Early starts are more common than in Virginia: 15.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Virginia: 51.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.9%) 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 Bedford 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 Bedford 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 Bedford County next to Virginia 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.

• Bedford County
• Virginia
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Bedford County	Virginia	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:31 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:28 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:30 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Bedford County were on the road by 7:30 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:27 AM). Virginia followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes later. Commuters in Bedford County now leave 8 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Bedford County's commute time compare?

Metric	Bedford County	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.4 min	23.2 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	12.8%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Bedford County is about the same as in Virginia.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau