Parkersburg Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Parkersburg, West 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, 4:29 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Parkersburg?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:29 PM

Commute Time Burden in Parkersburg: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Parkersburg spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 134 hours, about 5.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 26% less time on the road than the West Virginia average of 21.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.5 minutes.

Parkersburg holds about 1.4% of West Virginia's population but accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Parkersburg would save about 54 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,659 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)
Parkersburg	16.1 min	32.1 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,148	2,717
West Virginia	21.6 min	43.2 min	180 hrs/yr	$5,581	1,052
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.

Parkersburg Commute Map

On average, it takes 16.1 minutes to get to work in Parkersburg. That's 28% shorter 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 9.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Parkersburg

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Parkersburg, versus 0.0% in West Virginia.

Public transit is unusually common in Parkersburg: 3.7 times more than the West Virginia average (1.9% vs 0.5%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Parkersburg: 3.1 times more than the West Virginia average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Parkersburg, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Parkersburg 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	87.7%	2.9%	5.1%	0.9%	2.8%	0.0%	0.4%	0.2%
2010	88.6%	2.8%	4.0%	1.4%	2.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	89.5%	2.5%	3.5%	1.6%	2.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	90.9%	2.4%	3.5%	2.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	92.0%	2.3%	2.4%	1.8%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	92.9%	1.7%	2.5%	1.6%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	91.7%	2.2%	3.0%	1.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2016	90.4%	2.4%	3.5%	1.9%	1.0%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%
2017	90.4%	2.3%	3.9%	1.7%	1.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%
2018	89.8%	2.4%	4.5%	2.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2019	88.6%	3.1%	4.7%	2.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2020	87.4%	4.5%	4.7%	2.2%	0.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	86.8%	5.9%	4.8%	1.7%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	83.6%	9.0%	4.5%	1.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	82.5%	9.7%	4.6%	1.7%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	82.0%	9.8%	4.1%	1.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2014 at 92.9%. Overall it fell from 87.7% in 2009 to 82.0% in 2024, down 5.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Parkersburg: its share of workers rose from 2.9% in 2009 to 9.8% in 2024, up 6.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.1% to 4.1% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Parkersburg

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Parkersburg?

The bars show when commuters in Parkersburg 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 West Virginia for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		11.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Parkersburg is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.9% across West Virginia. Early starts are less common than in West Virginia: 12.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.3% there. The morning rush looks much like West Virginia's: 48.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.8%) 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 Parkersburg, 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 Parkersburg 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 Parkersburg next to West 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	Parkersburg	West Virginia	United States
2009	7:56 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:50 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:47 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:47 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:45 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:45 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:47 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:28 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:47 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Parkersburg were on the road by 7:47 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:56 AM). West Virginia followed the same path, with the typical start moving 8 minutes earlier. Commuters in Parkersburg now leave 10 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 Parkersburg has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Parkersburg's commute time compare?

Metric	Parkersburg	West Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.1 min	21.6 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.8%	9.1%	15.0%
Walked	4.1%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.9%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Parkersburg is 16.1 minutes, shorter than the 21.6 minutes in West Virginia.

1.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.5% in West Virginia. 4.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.5% in West Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Is living in Parkersburg, West Virginia good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 134 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,148 at a typical national wage. That's 26% less than the typical West Virginia commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Parkersburg, West Virginia?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Parkersburg, West 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.

Do people use public transit in Parkersburg, West Virginia?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 1.9% of commuters use it versus 0.5% in West Virginia, making it a realistic option for many workers.