Herndon Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Herndon, 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, 4:26 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Herndon?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:26 PM

Commute Time Burden in Herndon: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Herndon 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 0.3 minutes.

Herndon holds about 0.3% of Virginia's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Herndon would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,423 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)
Herndon	23.5 min	46.9 min	195 hrs/yr	$6,058	1,903
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.

Herndon Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.5 minutes to get to work in Herndon. That's 5% longer 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 21.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Herndon

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Herndon: 4.1 times more than the Virginia average (0.9% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Herndon, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Herndon 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	Public Transportation	Other	Walked	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	86.8%	3.1%	6.0%	0.3%	3.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	86.0%	3.8%	6.0%	0.9%	2.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	86.3%	3.3%	7.3%	0.7%	2.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	86.7%	3.3%	7.2%	0.7%	1.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	87.7%	3.7%	5.7%	0.7%	1.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2014	86.7%	3.6%	5.5%	1.1%	2.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2015	86.5%	4.1%	5.5%	0.4%	2.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%
2016	85.6%	4.1%	5.1%	0.6%	3.5%	0.3%	0.6%	0.3%
2017	81.7%	4.5%	7.4%	1.7%	3.8%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%
2018	79.6%	5.0%	8.8%	1.6%	3.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2019	77.5%	6.0%	9.7%	1.8%	3.8%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	76.4%	9.8%	7.9%	1.4%	3.3%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%
2021	72.4%	14.0%	9.0%	1.4%	2.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2022	71.1%	17.6%	6.1%	1.9%	2.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	71.1%	19.4%	3.9%	1.6%	2.2%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%
2024	69.9%	21.2%	3.5%	2.2%	1.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 87.7%. Overall it fell from 86.8% in 2009 to 69.9% in 2024, down 16.9 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Herndon: its share of workers rose from 3.1% in 2009 to 21.2% in 2024, up 18.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 15.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.0% to 3.5% of workers (down 2.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Herndon

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Herndon?

The bars show when commuters in Herndon 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		3.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Herndon is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 12.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.1% across Virginia. Early starts are less common than in Virginia: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Virginia's: 46.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.5%) 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 Herndon, 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 Herndon 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 Herndon 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	Herndon	Virginia	United States
2009	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:47 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:47 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:51 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:53 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:06 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:03 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:02 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:52 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Herndon were on the road by 7:45 AM, 6 minutes later than in 2009 (7:39 AM). The shift is sharper than across Virginia, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Herndon 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 Herndon has moved 21 minutes earlier.

How does Herndon's commute time compare?

Metric	Herndon	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.5 min	23.2 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	21.2%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.5%	2.3%	3.2%

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

3.5% commute by public transit, higher than the 2.3% in Virginia. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Herndon, VA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Herndon, VA compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Herndon, VA	24,312	23.5 min #3/3	21.2% #2/3	7:45 AM #2/3
McNair, VA	22,856	20.5 min	30.7%	8:10 AM
Sterling, VA	31,188	21.1 min	15.6%	7:39 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Herndon, Virginia.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Herndon, Virginia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 195 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,058 at a typical national wage. That's 1% more than the typical Virginia commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Herndon, Virginia?

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