St. Clair County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in St. Clair County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in St. Clair County spend about 62 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 259 hours, about 10.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 41% more time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 9.0 minutes.

St. Clair County holds about 1.9% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 2.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in St. Clair County would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,214 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)
St. Clair County	31.1 min	62.2 min	259 hrs/yr	$8,036	1,250
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 31.1 minutes to get to work in St. Clair County. That's 39% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 91% of counties in Alabama

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in St. Clair County

• Car: 87.0%
• Worked at Home: 11.7%
• Other: 0.9%
• Walked: 0.5%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is essentially absent in St. Clair County, versus 0.3% in Alabama.

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in St. Clair County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in St. Clair 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	95.2%	3.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	95.1%	3.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	94.6%	3.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	94.6%	4.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	95.1%	3.7%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	95.1%	3.3%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	94.7%	3.5%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	94.3%	3.5%	1.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	95.1%	2.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	95.7%	2.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	96.2%	2.2%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	95.4%	3.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	93.5%	5.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	91.4%	7.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.8%	9.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.0%	11.7%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%	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 96.2%. Overall it fell from 95.2% in 2009 to 87.0% in 2024, down 8.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in St. Clair County: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 11.7% in 2024, up 8.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in St. Clair County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in St. Clair County?

The bars show when commuters in St. Clair 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 St. Clair County8.3% Alabama6.8%	8.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM St. Clair County4.7% Alabama5.1%	4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM St. Clair County6.5% Alabama5.9%	6.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM St. Clair County12.6% Alabama9.9%	12.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM St. Clair County13.0% Alabama11.3%	13.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM St. Clair County19.2% Alabama16.8%	19.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM St. Clair County9.1% Alabama11.8%	9.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM St. Clair County8.6% Alabama8.6%	8.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM St. Clair County2.4% Alabama3.5%	2.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM St. Clair County3.4% Alabama4.6%	3.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM St. Clair County1.1% Alabama2.2%	1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM St. Clair County0.5% Alabama1.0%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM St. Clair County5.8% Alabama6.3%	5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM St. Clair County4.8% Alabama6.2%	4.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in St. Clair County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are more common than in Alabama: 19.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Alabama's: 49.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (15.6%) 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 St. Clair 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 St. Clair 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 St. Clair 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.

• St. Clair County
• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	St. Clair County	Alabama	United States
2009	7:07 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:05 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:07 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:08 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:10 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:10 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:12 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:11 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:08 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:07 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:03 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:06 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:05 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:09 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:06 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:08 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in St. Clair County were on the road by 7:08 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in St. Clair County now leave 30 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 St. Clair County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does St. Clair County's commute time compare?

Metric	St. Clair County	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.1 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.7%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in St. Clair County is 31.1 minutes, longer than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in Alabama. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau