Lewis County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/22/26, 12:05 AM

How long is the round-trip commute in Lewis County?

Map AI 10/22/26, 12:05 AM

Commute Time Burden in Lewis County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lewis County 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.

Lewis County holds about 1.1% of Washington's population and accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lewis County would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,239 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)
Lewis County	21.7 min	43.3 min	181 hrs/yr	$5,597	834
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.

Commute Time Map: Washington Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Washington

Walla Walla County (12.2 min)
San Juan County (12.3 min)
Asotin County (13.2 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Washington

Mason County (32.0 min)
Garfield County (28.4 min)
Snohomish County (28.3 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Lewis County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 21.7 minutes to get to work in Lewis County. 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 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lewis County

Public transit is unusually rare in Lewis County: 6.2 times less than the Washington average (0.6% vs 3.4%).

Biking is unusually rare in Lewis County: 12.2 times less than the Washington average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lewis County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lewis 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.

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	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	91.8%	4.9%	2.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	91.8%	4.5%	2.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	91.8%	4.3%	2.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	91.5%	4.3%	2.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	90.5%	4.8%	2.7%	0.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	90.7%	4.8%	2.8%	0.4%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	90.7%	5.2%	2.3%	0.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	90.8%	5.3%	2.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	90.8%	5.2%	2.5%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	91.8%	4.5%	2.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	91.4%	4.3%	3.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	88.7%	5.2%	4.1%	0.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	88.0%	6.2%	4.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	86.9%	7.5%	3.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	85.7%	8.6%	3.8%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	85.3%	9.7%	2.7%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 91.8% in 2009 to 85.3% in 2024, down 6.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lewis County: its share of workers rose from 4.9% in 2009 to 9.7% in 2024, up 4.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.1% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 2.7%.

Commute Start Times in Lewis County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lewis County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		12.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lewis County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.4% across Washington. Early starts are more common than in Washington: 22.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.6% there. The morning rush looks much like Washington's: 43.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.9%) 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 Lewis 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 Lewis 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 Lewis County 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	Lewis County	Washington	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:24 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lewis County were on the road by 7:21 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). That goes against the trend across Washington, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Lewis County now leave 17 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 Lewis County has moved 3 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Lewis County in the whole series.

How does Lewis County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lewis County	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	12:00 AM – 04:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.7%	19.8%	15.0%
Walked	2.7%	3.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	3.4%	3.2%

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

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.4% in Washington. 2.7% commute by walking, lower than the 3.0% in Washington.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lewis County, WA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Lewis County, WA is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 85,146 residents against a local median of 299,046. Where Lewis County, WA breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 44% below the local median of 17.4% at 9.7%.

The counties themselves spread 12.3% on work from home, so Lewis County, WA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Lewis County, WA has the 5th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lewis County, WA	85,146	21.7 min #2/6	9.7% #5/6	7:21 AM #3/6
Cowlitz County, WA	112,357	18.9 min	8.2%	7:21 AM
Pierce County, WA	929,755	26.9 min	13.9%	7:20 AM
Thurston County, WA	299,046	22.1 min	20.5%	7:31 AM
Skamania County, WA	12,398	27.0 min	17.4%	7:17 AM
Clark County, WA	516,710	21.7 min	19.1%	7:31 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lewis County, Washington.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 181 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,597 at a typical national wage. That's 3% less than the typical Washington commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Lewis County, Washington. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Lewis County, Washington?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.6% of commuters use it versus 3.4% in Washington, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

How do commute times compare across counties in Washington?

Among counties in Washington, the shortest average commutes are in Walla Walla County (12.2 min), San Juan County (12.3 min), Asotin County (13.2 min). The longest are in Mason County (32.0 min), Garfield County (28.4 min), Snohomish County (28.3 min).