Emporia city Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 2:09 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Emporia city?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:09 PM

Commute Time Burden in Emporia city: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Emporia city spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 174 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% less time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Emporia city holds about 0.1% of Virginia's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Emporia city would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,155 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)
Emporia city	20.9 min	41.7 min	174 hrs/yr	$5,388	618
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Virginia

Lexington city (10.6 min)
Covington city (12.2 min)
Norton city (13.1 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Virginia

Amelia County (43.7 min)
Craig County (41.3 min)
Buckingham County (41.3 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Emporia city

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 20.9 minutes to get to work in Emporia city. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Emporia city

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Emporia city, versus 0.1% in Virginia.

Public transit is unusually rare in Emporia city: 13.2 times less than the Virginia average (0.2% vs 2.3%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Emporia city: 6.1 times more than the Virginia average (1.3% vs 0.2%).

Biking is essentially absent in Emporia city, versus 0.3% in Virginia.

Commute Mode Trends in Emporia city, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Emporia city 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	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Other
2009	93.7%	2.0%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	2.4%
2010	88.8%	2.3%	4.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	4.1%
2011	89.5%	1.5%	4.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	4.1%
2012	90.5%	1.5%	5.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	2.4%
2013	86.5%	3.4%	7.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	2.7%
2014	86.5%	2.6%	7.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	3.6%
2015	93.3%	2.9%	2.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.6%	2.4%	4.7%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	89.1%	2.9%	4.2%	0.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	2.7%
2018	89.2%	1.2%	3.0%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	4.8%
2019	88.1%	2.3%	3.9%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	4.4%
2020	88.5%	1.4%	3.1%	2.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	3.9%
2021	89.2%	2.5%	2.4%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	4.0%
2022	90.0%	2.2%	3.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	2.4%
2023	89.8%	6.0%	2.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.1%	10.0%	4.4%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	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 93.7% in 2009 to 84.1% in 2024, down 9.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Emporia city: its share of workers rose from 2.0% in 2009 to 10.0% in 2024, up 8.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Taking a taxi overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 4th most common choice in the 2015 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 7.4% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 4.4%.

Commute Start Times in Emporia city

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Emporia city?

The bars show when commuters in Emporia city 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		4.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		7.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.3%

Emporia city Virginia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Emporia city is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.1% across Virginia. Early starts are more common than in Virginia: 18.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Virginia: 43.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.8%) 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 Emporia city, 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 Emporia city 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 Emporia city 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.

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

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Emporia city	Virginia	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:55 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:56 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:43 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:48 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:18 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:02 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:03 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	6:54 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:00 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Emporia city were on the road by 7:45 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:48 AM). That goes against the trend across Virginia, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Emporia city now leave 7 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 Emporia city has moved 51 minutes later.

How does Emporia city's commute time compare?

Metric	Emporia city	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.9 min	23.2 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.0%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	4.4%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Emporia city is 20.9 minutes, shorter than the 23.2 minutes in Virginia.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 4.4% commute by walking, higher than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Emporia city, VA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Emporia city, VA is the smallest of the 6 counties compared here, 5,517 residents against a local median of 15,841. Where Emporia city, VA breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 45% above the local median of 6.9% at 10.0%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 20.9 min against a local median of 25.8 min, 19% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 19% below the local median it puts Emporia city, VA at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 7.1% on work from home, so Emporia city, VA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Emporia city, VA has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Emporia city, VA	5,517	20.9 min #1/6	10.0% #2/6	7:45 AM #6/6
Greensville County, VA	11,306	25.5 min	3.9%	7:07 AM
Northampton County, NC	16,931	23.5 min	5.9%	7:21 AM
Brunswick County, VA	15,841	25.8 min	6.9%	7:25 AM
Sussex County, VA	10,765	33.0 min	8.5%	7:09 AM
Dinwiddie County, VA	28,193	30.5 min	11.0%	7:06 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Emporia city, Virginia.

Is commuting expensive in Emporia city, Virginia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 174 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,388 at a typical national wage. That's 10% less than the typical Virginia commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Emporia city, Virginia?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Emporia city, Virginia. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Emporia city, Virginia?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 2.3% in Virginia, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

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

Among counties in Virginia, the shortest average commutes are in Lexington city (10.6 min), Covington city (12.2 min), Norton city (13.1 min). The longest are in Amelia County (43.7 min), Craig County (41.3 min), Buckingham County (41.3 min).