Lacey Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:28 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Lacey?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:28 PM

Commute Time Burden in Lacey: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lacey spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 181 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% less time on the road than the Washington average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Lacey holds about 0.6% of Washington's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lacey would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,242 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)
Lacey	21.7 min	43.4 min	181 hrs/yr	$5,606	3,777
Washington	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,525
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.

Lacey Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.7 minutes to get to work in Lacey. That's 3% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 17.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lacey

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Lacey: 3.5 times less than the Washington average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lacey, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lacey 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	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.4%	2.9%	1.6%	2.1%	1.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	92.0%	2.4%	1.6%	2.2%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	91.6%	3.6%	1.6%	1.5%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	91.2%	3.7%	1.6%	1.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	90.3%	3.7%	1.7%	2.3%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%
2014	90.4%	4.0%	1.7%	2.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%
2015	90.6%	4.3%	1.1%	2.1%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.6%
2016	90.6%	3.7%	1.2%	2.4%	0.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2017	90.4%	3.9%	1.3%	2.3%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%
2018	90.0%	4.8%	1.8%	1.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.4%
2019	89.7%	4.4%	1.6%	2.5%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	87.6%	6.5%	1.9%	2.5%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	85.3%	9.2%	2.1%	2.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	82.6%	12.5%	2.2%	1.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	80.0%	14.9%	1.6%	2.3%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	78.2%	17.6%	1.7%	1.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 92.0%. Overall it fell from 91.4% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2024, down 13.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lacey: its share of workers rose from 2.9% in 2009 to 17.6% in 2024, up 14.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.1% to 1.6% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Lacey

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lacey?

The bars show when commuters in Lacey 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 Washington for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		7.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.3%

Lacey Washington Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Lacey is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.4% across Washington. Early starts are more common than in Washington: 20.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.6% there. The morning rush looks much like Washington's: 42.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.2%) 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 Lacey, 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 Lacey 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 Lacey next to Washington 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	Lacey	Washington	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lacey were on the road by 7:28 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:33 AM). That goes against the trend across Washington, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Lacey now leave 10 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 Lacey has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Lacey's commute time compare?

Metric	Lacey	Washington	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.7 min	22.4 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	17.6%	19.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	3.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.6%	3.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lacey is about the same as in Washington.

1.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.4% in Washington. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 3.0% in Washington.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lacey, WA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Lacey, WA compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lacey, WA	50,062	21.7 min #3/3	17.6% #3/3	7:28 AM #1/3
Olympia, WA	51,739	16.3 min	25.5%	7:55 AM
Tumwater, WA	23,169	17.6 min	28.2%	7:42 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lacey, Washington.

Is living in Lacey, Washington good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 181 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,606 at a typical national wage. That's 3% less than the typical Washington commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Lacey, Washington?

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