Clarke County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Clarke County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clarke County spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 173 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.4 minutes.

Clarke County holds about 0.4% of Alabama's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clarke County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,146 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)
Clarke County	20.8 min	41.5 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,364	353
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
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: Alabama Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 20.8 minutes to get to work in Clarke County. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 3.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clarke County

• Car: 93.3%
• Worked at Home: 3.0%
• Other: 2.2%
• Walked: 1.1%
• Public Transportation: 0.4%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Clarke County, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Clarke County, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Biking is unusually rare in Clarke County: 6.8 times less than the Alabama average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Clarke County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clarke 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	96.4%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	96.9%	1.1%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	97.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	96.6%	1.2%	0.7%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.1%	1.5%	2.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	95.0%	1.5%	2.2%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	94.8%	1.1%	2.5%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	94.8%	1.0%	2.6%	1.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	95.5%	0.9%	2.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	97.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	98.1%	1.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	96.6%	2.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	97.2%	1.7%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	95.5%	1.9%	1.4%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	93.6%	2.6%	2.2%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	93.3%	3.0%	2.2%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2019 at 98.1%. Overall it fell from 96.4% in 2009 to 93.3% in 2024, down 3.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Clarke County: its share of workers rose from 0.9% in 2009 to 3.0% in 2024, up 2.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Clarke County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clarke County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Clarke County11.8% Alabama6.8%	11.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Clarke County8.9% Alabama5.1%	8.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Clarke County5.4% Alabama5.9%	5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Clarke County13.8% Alabama9.9%	13.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Clarke County4.8% Alabama11.3%	4.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Clarke County14.5% Alabama16.8%	14.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Clarke County12.1% Alabama11.8%	12.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Clarke County8.9% Alabama8.6%	8.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Clarke County1.0% Alabama3.5%	1.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Clarke County1.8% Alabama4.6%	1.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Clarke County2.7% Alabama2.2%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Clarke County1.5% Alabama1.0%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Clarke County7.2% Alabama6.3%	7.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Clarke County5.5% Alabama6.2%	5.5%

Clarke County Alabama Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Clarke County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are more common than in Alabama: 26.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Alabama: 40.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.7%) 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 Clarke 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 Clarke 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 Clarke County next to Alabama 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.

• Clarke County
• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clarke County	Alabama	United States
2009	6:55 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	6:53 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:02 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:06 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:03 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:03 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	6:53 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	6:51 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	6:46 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	6:46 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	6:48 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:15 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:13 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:11 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clarke County were on the road by 7:11 AM, 16 minutes later than in 2009 (6:55 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Clarke County now leave 27 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 Clarke County has moved 25 minutes later.

How does Clarke County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clarke County	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.8 min	22.1 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	3.0%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clarke County is 20.8 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.4% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Alabama. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau