Henrico draws the most metro Richmond commuter traffic
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Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios
Nearly 400,000 metro Richmond residents commute for work outside the locality where they live, according to a new report from UVA's Weldon Cooper Center.
- Their top destination: another locality in metro Richmond.
Why it matters: The new data illustrates how deeply Richmond and its surrounding counties are interconnected.
State of play: The Weldon Cooper Center used commuting data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 employment and employer data sets, the most recent year available, to create its Virginia Commuting Patterns dashboard.
- This data can be especially useful to local governments as they plan for transportation and housing investments, the center notes.
What they found: In all four big metro Richmond localities, just a fraction of residents work where they live.
- And when locals commute, it's not the city of Richmond that draws the most — it's Henrico County.
By the numbers: Each day, 411,073 people commute from their home city or county into one of the region's big four localities, per the data.
➡️ Here's where they're headed:
- Henrico: 143,546 commute in
- Richmond: 129,483
- Chesterfield: 91,584
- Hanover: 46,460
Yes, but: Except for Chesterfield, every metro locality attracts more commuting workers than it loses.
⬅️ Here's where they're leaving:
- Chesterfield: 120,770 people commute out
- Henrico: 103,249
- Richmond: 72,523
- Hanover: 43,021
Between the lines: Richmond's suburbs have long been white-collar job hubs for the region.
- That's been the case at least since Henrico's Innsbrook office park opened in 1980 — now home to around 500 companies and 22,000 workers, according to its website.
- Of the region's largest employers, 19 are located in Henrico and 19 in Richmond, per the Greater Richmond Partnership. (Chesterfield has nine and Hanover, four).
The intrigue: The NoVa commuter, here to raise housing prices with their inflated salaries, seems to be less of a factor than locals perhaps thought, the data suggests.
- Inbound and outbound commutes between RVA and NoVa localities account for 2%-5% of any local commute.
The fine print: The Census Bureau's job location stats used the employer's address, which may not reflect the actual office location, nor does it distinguish between remote, hybrid or in-person work, per the center.
The bottom line: When it comes to where Richmonders live and work (and usually play), it really is one, big interconnected region.