What is the best time to leave for work in central Ohio?

If you live in central Ohio and leave for work between 7 and 8:30 a.m., you may be costing yourself valuable time.

That's the finding of a survey from the California-based software and management company Yardi Kube, which scoured U.S. Census data to identify the best commute times in American cities.

The information could save motorists several hours a year, a Yardi spokesperson said. 

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The study found that the average U.S. commute time of 25.6 minutes (one way) is the lowest it's been in a decade.

But while many people can continue to work from home, millions must still trudge to the office through clogged traffic on central Ohio highways.

The best time to leave

The majority (63%) of the Columbus-area's 357,884 commuters leave for work between 6 and 10 a.m. on weekdays, according to the census data Yardi analyzed. 

The busiest window is 7 to 7:30 a.m., when around 12% of commuters depart, followed by 11% between 7:30 and 8 a.m. and another 11% between 8 and 8:30 a.m.

The best time to leave home is after 8:30 a.m., according to Yardi’s analysis, when many commuters have already left.

Holding off by just a half-hour can make a difference. Departing at 7:30 a.m. instead of 7 a.m., for example, can save a typical central Ohio driver two minutes — turning a 23-minute commute into a 21-minute commute, according to Yardi — which seems trivial, but adds up to around eight and a half hours per year.

Hybrid work schedules are far more common than in 2019 and workers have more flexibility, said Sanziana Bona, a content marketing specialist for Yardi.

"It's important to know how much time you save if you adjust your departure time by half an hour," she said.

Not everyone can leave when they want

Lisa Rosen, 42, needs to be in her downtown Columbus office by 8:30 a.m., which means leaving her Hilliard home before 8 a.m. With two small children who need to be ready for school and day care, leaving at a more opportune moment isn’t a luxury available to her.

“I don’t have much flexibility,” she said.

Commuters who work in Columbus and live in exurbs such as London or Lancaster have to leave early to make it to work on time, noted Nick Gill, transportation director for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

And "if you're working in warehouse job or manufacturing job or retail job, you need to be there at a certain time," he added. "You probably have a little bit less flexibility."

Commute times plummeted in 2020 and 2021, but with an average national commute around 25 minutes, the grand American tradition of getting stuck in traffic on a morning drive stubbornly persists.

"We were expecting a larger decrease in travel time," Bona said. "We were surprised to see it wasn't that big."

Delaware City Councilman Cory Huffman represents the southeast portion of the city and says around 70% of his working-age constituents commute to New Albany, Dublin, and Columbus on heavily traveled highways like Rts 23 and 315 and Interstate 270. A trip to Downtown Columbus in the morning takes as much as 45 minutes, he said.

"The traffic problem is real," Hoffman said.

Solutions ahead?

The councilman would like to see the Legislature work with state agencies and local governments to find ways to improve traffic flow.

Advocates of public transit have long called for expanded bus routes, bus rapid transit, and light rail to unclog highways and give commuters more options.

MORPC is trying to do just that through its LinkUs initiative, which aims to give central Ohioans more ways to get to work, including rapid bus lines.

"We're developing the project and identifying the full cost and scope and securing the funding," Gill said. "In terms of implementation, we're still several years out."

pcooley@dispatch.com

@PatrickACooley