Bent County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Bent County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Bent County spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 129 hours, about 5.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% less time on the road than the Colorado average of 22.0 minutes each way, a difference of 6.6 minutes.

Bent County holds about 0.1% of Colorado's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Bent County would save about 52 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,598 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)
Bent County	15.5 min	30.9 min	129 hrs/yr	$3,995	315
Colorado	22.0 min	44.1 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,694	1,277
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: Colorado Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 15.5 minutes to get to work in Bent County. That's 31% 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 6.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Bent County

• Car: 91.6% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.4% unusually low
• Other: 1.5%
• Walked: 0.5% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Bent County, versus 0.1% in Colorado.

Driving is 26% more common in Bent County than the Colorado average (91.6% vs 72.7%).

Walking is unusually rare in Bent County: 5.4 times less than the Colorado average (0.5% vs 2.5%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Bent County, versus 1.6% in Colorado.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Bent County, versus 0.1% in Colorado.

Working from home is unusually rare in Bent County: 3.3 times less than the Colorado average (6.4% vs 21.0%).

Biking is essentially absent in Bent County, versus 0.9% in Colorado.

Few people walk or bike to work in Bent County: just 0.5%, 7.3 times below the Colorado average of 3.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Bent County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Bent 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	85.4%	7.3%	0.1%	7.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	88.9%	5.4%	0.2%	5.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	88.0%	5.3%	0.6%	5.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	85.0%	8.0%	0.9%	5.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	87.9%	7.1%	0.7%	4.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	88.9%	6.0%	0.9%	4.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	86.9%	8.1%	1.3%	3.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	87.5%	6.4%	1.3%	4.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	89.7%	3.5%	2.7%	4.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	90.5%	3.0%	2.3%	4.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	87.2%	3.2%	2.7%	4.2%	2.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	92.5%	3.9%	0.5%	0.4%	2.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	89.1%	6.3%	0.4%	0.4%	3.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.8%	5.9%	1.6%	0.1%	2.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.0%	7.4%	1.8%	0.1%	2.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.6%	6.4%	1.5%	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 was highest in 2020 at 92.5% and lowest in 2012 at 85.0%. Overall it rose from 85.4% in 2009 to 91.6% in 2024, up 6.2 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 7.1% to 0.5% of workers (down 6.6 percentage points).

Public transit peaked at 3.8% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 0.0%.

Commute Start Times in Bent County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Bent County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Bent County5.1% Colorado4.6%	5.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Bent County6.7% Colorado3.6%	6.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Bent County6.7% Colorado5.0%	6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Bent County11.9% Colorado8.5%	11.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Bent County9.5% Colorado10.2%	9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Bent County19.3% Colorado15.3%	19.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Bent County9.6% Colorado12.8%	9.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Bent County7.5% Colorado11.8%	7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Bent County2.3% Colorado5.4%	2.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Bent County3.7% Colorado6.9%	3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Bent County1.4% Colorado3.2%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Bent County2.8% Colorado1.5%	2.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Bent County6.2% Colorado6.0%	6.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Bent County7.3% Colorado5.2%	7.3%

Bent County Colorado Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Bent County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Colorado. Early starts are more common than in Colorado: 18.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.1% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Colorado: 45.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.1% 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 Bent 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 Bent 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 Bent County next to Colorado 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.

• Bent County
• Colorado
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Bent County	Colorado	United States
2009	7:25 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:02 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	6:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:10 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:12 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:16 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Bent County were on the road by 7:16 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:25 AM). Across Colorado, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Bent County now leave 22 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 Bent County has moved 13 minutes earlier.

How does Bent County's commute time compare?

Metric	Bent County	Colorado	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.5 min	22.0 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	6.4%	21.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	1.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Bent County is 15.5 minutes, shorter than the 22.0 minutes in Colorado.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.6% in Colorado. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Colorado.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau