DeKalb County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in DeKalb County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in DeKalb County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 171 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.6 minutes.

DeKalb County holds about 1.4% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in DeKalb County would save about 68 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,116 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)
DeKalb County	20.5 min	41.0 min	171 hrs/yr	$5,291	808
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 20.5 minutes to get to work in DeKalb County. That's 9% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Alabama

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 4.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in DeKalb County

• Car: 94.3%
• Worked at Home: 4.4%
• Walked: 0.7%
• Other: 0.6%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in DeKalb County: 17.5 times less than the Alabama average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in DeKalb County: 8.5 times less than the Alabama average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Biking is essentially absent in DeKalb County, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Commute Mode Trends in DeKalb County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in DeKalb 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
• Walked
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	95.3%	2.3%	1.2%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	95.1%	2.5%	1.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	95.7%	2.5%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	95.3%	2.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.3%	2.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	95.8%	2.5%	0.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	96.4%	2.1%	0.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	96.4%	1.9%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	96.3%	2.1%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	96.0%	2.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	95.2%	3.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	95.4%	2.8%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	94.9%	3.3%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	94.4%	3.8%	1.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	94.5%	3.8%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	94.3%	4.4%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	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 2015 at 96.4%. Overall it fell from 95.3% in 2009 to 94.3% in 2024, down 1.0 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in DeKalb County: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 4.4% in 2024, up 2.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.2% to 0.7% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in DeKalb County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in DeKalb County?

The bars show when commuters in DeKalb 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 DeKalb County10.9% Alabama6.8%	10.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM DeKalb County5.5% Alabama5.1%	5.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM DeKalb County9.0% Alabama5.9%	9.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM DeKalb County9.6% Alabama9.9%	9.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM DeKalb County9.7% Alabama11.3%	9.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM DeKalb County13.8% Alabama16.8%	13.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM DeKalb County10.7% Alabama11.8%	10.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM DeKalb County5.3% Alabama8.6%	5.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM DeKalb County4.1% Alabama3.5%	4.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM DeKalb County3.6% Alabama4.6%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM DeKalb County1.8% Alabama2.2%	1.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM DeKalb County1.2% Alabama1.0%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM DeKalb County7.5% Alabama6.3%	7.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM DeKalb County7.3% Alabama6.2%	7.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in DeKalb County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are more common than in Alabama: 25.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Alabama: 39.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.4%) 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 DeKalb 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 DeKalb 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 DeKalb 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.

• DeKalb County
• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	DeKalb County	Alabama	United States
2009	7:06 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:07 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:09 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:10 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:07 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:05 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:05 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:05 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:03 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:08 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:12 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in DeKalb County were on the road by 7:12 AM, 6 minutes later than in 2009 (7:06 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in DeKalb County now leave 26 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 DeKalb County has moved 8 minutes later.

How does DeKalb County's commute time compare?

Metric	DeKalb County	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.5 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	12:00 AM – 04:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.4%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in DeKalb County is 20.5 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in Alabama. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau