Tuscaloosa Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Tuscaloosa: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Tuscaloosa spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 138 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 5.5 minutes.

Tuscaloosa holds about 2.0% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Tuscaloosa would save about 55 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,715 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)
Tuscaloosa	16.6 min	33.2 min	138 hrs/yr	$4,289	2,272
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.

Tuscaloosa Commute Map

On average, it takes 16.6 minutes to get to work in Tuscaloosa. That's 26% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Tuscaloosa

• Car: 83.4%
• Worked at Home: 8.3%
• Walked: 4.8% unusually high
• Public Transportation: 1.4% unusually high
• Other: 1.3%
• Bicycle: 0.6% unusually high
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%

Walking is unusually common in Tuscaloosa: 4.2 times more than the Alabama average (4.8% vs 1.1%).

Public transit is unusually common in Tuscaloosa: 4.6 times more than the Alabama average (1.4% vs 0.3%).

Biking is unusually common in Tuscaloosa: 6.7 times more than the Alabama average (0.6% vs 0.1%).

Tuscaloosa stands out for active commuting: 5.3% of workers walk or bike to work, 4.3 times the Alabama average of 1.2%.

Commute Mode Trends in Tuscaloosa, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.7%	1.9%	2.6%	1.3%	1.5%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2010	90.9%	2.2%	3.0%	1.2%	1.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	91.3%	2.1%	3.0%	1.1%	1.2%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%
2012	92.1%	2.1%	2.9%	1.1%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	91.7%	2.5%	2.8%	1.4%	0.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%
2014	91.2%	2.8%	3.2%	1.2%	0.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	91.6%	3.1%	3.0%	0.8%	0.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	90.9%	3.9%	2.9%	0.8%	0.3%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	91.1%	4.0%	2.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	91.7%	4.4%	2.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	92.0%	4.0%	1.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	90.2%	5.8%	1.7%	1.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	89.2%	5.9%	1.9%	1.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2022	88.8%	5.9%	2.4%	1.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	85.1%	8.0%	3.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	83.4%	8.3%	4.8%	1.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 92.1%. Overall it fell from 91.7% in 2009 to 83.4% in 2024, down 8.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Tuscaloosa: its share of workers rose from 1.9% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2015 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Tuscaloosa

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Tuscaloosa?

The bars show when commuters in Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa3.9% Alabama6.8%	3.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Tuscaloosa2.8% Alabama5.1%	2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Tuscaloosa4.1% Alabama5.9%	4.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Tuscaloosa5.7% Alabama9.9%	5.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Tuscaloosa8.1% Alabama11.3%	8.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Tuscaloosa13.4% Alabama16.8%	13.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Tuscaloosa14.1% Alabama11.8%	14.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Tuscaloosa9.8% Alabama8.6%	9.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Tuscaloosa5.2% Alabama3.5%	5.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Tuscaloosa8.3% Alabama4.6%	8.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Tuscaloosa2.8% Alabama2.2%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Tuscaloosa1.5% Alabama1.0%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Tuscaloosa8.9% Alabama6.3%	8.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Tuscaloosa11.3% Alabama6.2%	11.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Tuscaloosa is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Alabama. Early starts are less common than in Alabama: 10.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Alabama: 45.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (32.8%) 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 Tuscaloosa, 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 Tuscaloosa 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 Tuscaloosa 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.

• Tuscaloosa
• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Tuscaloosa	Alabama	United States
2009	7:57 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:54 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:49 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:46 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:46 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:49 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:52 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:52 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:52 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:52 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:50 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:51 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:54 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:55 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:55 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Tuscaloosa were on the road by 7:55 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:57 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Tuscaloosa now leave 18 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Tuscaloosa has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Tuscaloosa's commute time compare?

Metric	Tuscaloosa	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.6 min	22.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.3%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	4.8%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.4%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Tuscaloosa is 16.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

1.4% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Alabama. 4.8% commute by walking, higher than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau