Surry County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Surry County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Surry County spend about 81 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 338 hours, about 14.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 75% more time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 17.4 minutes.

Surry County 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 Surry County would save about 135 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $4,189 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)
Surry County	40.5 min	81.1 min	338 hrs/yr	$10,473	1,096
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 40.5 minutes to get to work in Surry County. That's 81% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the 5 slowest counties in Virginia

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 6.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Surry County

• Car: 91.9% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.7%
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Walked: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Surry County, versus 0.1% in Virginia.

Driving is 22% more common in Surry County than the Virginia average (91.9% vs 75.6%).

Walking is unusually rare in Surry County: 13.0 times less than the Virginia average (0.2% vs 2.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Surry County: 7.4 times less than the Virginia average (0.3% vs 2.3%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Surry County, versus 0.2% in Virginia.

Biking is essentially absent in Surry County, versus 0.3% in Virginia.

Few people walk or bike to work in Surry County: just 0.2%, 14.8 times below the Virginia average of 2.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Surry County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Surry 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
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Public Transportation	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	96.9%	2.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	96.7%	2.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	97.8%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	98.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	96.5%	1.4%	1.0%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	94.8%	2.7%	1.2%	0.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	93.6%	4.0%	1.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	92.0%	4.0%	1.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	90.1%	4.6%	1.9%	2.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	90.9%	4.5%	1.2%	2.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	91.8%	3.0%	1.3%	2.9%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	91.8%	2.2%	2.2%	3.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.8%	2.2%	2.7%	2.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.5%	3.7%	2.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.8%	6.5%	2.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.9%	6.7%	1.0%	0.3%	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. Its share was highest in 2012 at 98.2% and lowest in 2017 at 90.1%. Overall it fell from 96.9% in 2009 to 91.9% in 2024, down 5.0 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Surry County: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 6.7% in 2024, up 3.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit peaked at 3.0% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 0.3%.

Commute Start Times in Surry County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Surry County?

The bars show when commuters in Surry 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 Surry County9.4% Virginia5.0%	9.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Surry County7.7% Virginia4.0%	7.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Surry County7.9% Virginia5.0%	7.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Surry County10.4% Virginia8.7%	10.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Surry County12.4% Virginia9.2%	12.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Surry County13.2% Virginia14.2%	13.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Surry County6.4% Virginia12.1%	6.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Surry County10.4% Virginia12.1%	10.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Surry County3.6% Virginia6.4%	3.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Surry County5.7% Virginia7.2%	5.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Surry County0.5% Virginia3.0%	0.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Surry County0.1% Virginia1.4%	0.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Surry County8.1% Virginia6.0%	8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Surry County4.4% Virginia5.7%	4.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Surry County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across Virginia. Early starts are more common than in Virginia: 25.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Virginia: 42.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.6%) 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 Surry 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 Surry 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 Surry 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.

• Surry County
• Virginia
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Surry County	Virginia	United States
2009	7:02 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	6:58 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:09 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:15 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:15 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:13 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:16 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:11 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	6:59 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:08 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:03 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:04 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:00 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:01 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:05 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Surry County were on the road by 7:05 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:02 AM). Virginia followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes later. Commuters in Surry County now leave 33 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 Surry County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Surry County's commute time compare?

Metric	Surry County	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	40.5 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	6.7%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.2%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Surry County is 40.5 minutes, longer than the 23.2 minutes in Virginia.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 0.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau