Chesterfield County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Chesterfield County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Chesterfield County spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 212 hours, about 8.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% more time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Chesterfield County holds about 4.3% of Virginia's population but accounts for roughly 4.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Chesterfield County would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,628 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)
Chesterfield County	25.4 min	50.9 min	212 hrs/yr	$6,571	2,456
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 25.4 minutes to get to work in Chesterfield County. That's 13% 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 19.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Chesterfield County

• Car: 78.7%
• Worked at Home: 19.5%
• Walked: 0.7% unusually low
• Other: 0.5%
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually rare in Chesterfield County: 3.1 times less than the Virginia average (0.7% vs 2.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Chesterfield County: 5.6 times less than the Virginia average (0.4% vs 2.3%).

Biking is unusually rare in Chesterfield County: 9.5 times less than the Virginia average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Chesterfield County: just 0.7%, 3.3 times below the Virginia average of 2.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Chesterfield County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.3%	3.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	94.2%	4.0%	0.7%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	93.8%	4.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	93.4%	4.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	93.6%	4.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	93.5%	4.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	93.1%	4.6%	0.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	92.9%	4.7%	0.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	92.8%	4.8%	0.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	92.7%	4.9%	0.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.2%	5.3%	0.7%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	89.7%	8.1%	0.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	86.6%	11.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	84.0%	13.9%	0.6%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	81.0%	17.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	78.7%	19.5%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.3% in 2009 to 78.7% in 2024, down 15.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 11 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Chesterfield County: its share of workers rose from 3.7% in 2009 to 19.5% in 2024, up 15.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 14.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Chesterfield County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Chesterfield County?

The bars show when commuters in Chesterfield 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 Chesterfield County3.0% Virginia5.0%	3.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Chesterfield County3.4% Virginia4.0%	3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Chesterfield County3.9% Virginia5.0%	3.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Chesterfield County9.3% Virginia8.7%	9.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Chesterfield County10.8% Virginia9.2%	10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Chesterfield County15.9% Virginia14.2%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Chesterfield County12.9% Virginia12.1%	12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Chesterfield County12.4% Virginia12.1%	12.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Chesterfield County5.7% Virginia6.4%	5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Chesterfield County6.3% Virginia7.2%	6.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Chesterfield County2.7% Virginia3.0%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Chesterfield County1.5% Virginia1.4%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Chesterfield County5.8% Virginia6.0%	5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Chesterfield County6.5% Virginia5.7%	6.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Chesterfield County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across Virginia. Early starts are less common than in Virginia: 10.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Virginia: 51.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.9%) 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 Chesterfield 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 Chesterfield 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 Chesterfield 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.

• Chesterfield County
• Virginia
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Chesterfield County	Virginia	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:43 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:41 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:40 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:39 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:39 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:39 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Chesterfield County were on the road by 7:39 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:41 AM). That goes against the trend across Virginia, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Chesterfield County now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Chesterfield County's commute time compare?

Metric	Chesterfield County	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.4 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	19.5%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Chesterfield County is 25.4 minutes, longer than the 23.2 minutes in Virginia.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau