Suffolk Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Suffolk, 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 Suffolk?

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

Commute Time Burden in Suffolk: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Suffolk spend about 60 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 252 hours, about 10.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% more time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 7.0 minutes.

Suffolk holds about 1.1% of Virginia's population but accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Suffolk would save about 101 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,121 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)
Suffolk	30.2 min	60.4 min	252 hrs/yr	$7,803	2,054
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.

Suffolk Commute Map

On average, it takes 30.2 minutes to get to work in Suffolk. That's 35% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Suffolk

Public transit is unusually rare in Suffolk: 11.6 times less than the Virginia average (0.2% vs 2.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Suffolk, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Suffolk 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	Other	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.6%	2.0%	0.9%	1.1%	0.1%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	94.6%	2.4%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	94.5%	2.6%	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	95.1%	2.5%	0.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	94.9%	2.6%	0.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	94.4%	2.6%	1.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	94.2%	2.9%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2016	94.0%	3.2%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	94.1%	3.4%	1.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	94.2%	3.4%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2019	94.1%	3.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	92.5%	5.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	90.5%	7.1%	0.9%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	89.5%	7.9%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2023	87.9%	9.3%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	86.7%	10.7%	0.9%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 95.1%. Overall it fell from 94.6% in 2009 to 86.7% in 2024, down 7.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Suffolk: its share of workers rose from 2.0% in 2009 to 10.7% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.0% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Walking overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Suffolk

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Suffolk?

The bars show when commuters in Suffolk 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		7.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Suffolk is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across Virginia. Early starts are more common than in Virginia: 22.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Virginia's: 46.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.2%) 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 Suffolk, 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 Suffolk 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 Suffolk 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	Suffolk	Virginia	United States
2009	7:13 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:16 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:15 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:14 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:16 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:18 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:17 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:17 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:13 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:16 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:13 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Suffolk were on the road by 7:13 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Virginia, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Suffolk now leave 25 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Suffolk has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Suffolk's commute time compare?

Metric	Suffolk	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	30.2 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.7%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Suffolk is 30.2 minutes, longer than the 23.2 minutes in Virginia.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Suffolk, Virginia.

Is commuting expensive in Suffolk, Virginia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 252 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,803 at a typical national wage. That's 30% more than the typical Virginia commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Suffolk, Virginia. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Suffolk, 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.