Lake County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lake County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lake 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 172 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Colorado average of 22.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.4 minutes.

Lake 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 Lake County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,137 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)
Lake County	20.7 min	41.4 min	172 hrs/yr	$5,343	151
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 20.7 minutes to get to work in Lake County. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 73% of counties in Colorado

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lake County

• Car: 79.4%
• Worked at Home: 8.5%
• Walked: 5.3%
• Bicycle: 4.4% unusually high
• Other: 2.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Lake County: 10.3 times less than the Colorado average (0.2% vs 1.6%).

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

Biking is unusually common in Lake County: 4.9 times more than the Colorado average (4.4% vs 0.9%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lake County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	82.8%	2.5%	10.7%	1.7%	1.2%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	82.0%	2.7%	12.3%	0.5%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	81.4%	2.3%	10.4%	1.8%	1.6%	2.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	83.9%	2.1%	11.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	75.1%	6.5%	14.1%	1.9%	0.6%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	73.1%	8.8%	14.5%	1.4%	0.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	76.4%	9.1%	11.2%	1.0%	0.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	77.3%	9.2%	10.1%	0.6%	1.1%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	77.3%	8.3%	10.9%	0.5%	1.5%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	80.5%	7.2%	8.1%	0.4%	3.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	87.0%	6.7%	2.8%	0.9%	2.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	86.0%	6.4%	2.0%	3.8%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	83.9%	4.9%	4.9%	4.7%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	81.4%	7.2%	3.9%	5.5%	2.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.0%	6.6%	5.5%	4.8%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	79.4%	8.5%	5.3%	4.4%	2.3%	0.2%	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 2019 at 87.0% and lowest in 2014 at 73.1%. Overall it fell from 82.8% in 2009 to 79.4% in 2024, down 3.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lake County: its share of workers rose from 2.5% in 2009 to 8.5% in 2024, up 6.0 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 10.7% to 5.3% of workers (down 5.4 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 2.5% in 2011 and has since fallen back to 0.2%.

Commute Start Times in Lake County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lake County?

The bars show when commuters in Lake 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 Lake County4.5% Colorado4.6%	4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lake County3.8% Colorado3.6%	3.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lake County8.6% Colorado5.0%	8.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lake County11.4% Colorado8.5%	11.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lake County10.7% Colorado10.2%	10.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lake County11.0% Colorado15.3%	11.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lake County11.6% Colorado12.8%	11.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lake County16.7% Colorado11.8%	16.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lake County10.1% Colorado5.4%	10.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lake County1.8% Colorado6.9%	1.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lake County1.6% Colorado3.2%	1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lake County0.5% Colorado1.5%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lake County5.0% Colorado6.0%	5.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lake County2.9% Colorado5.2%	2.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lake County is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Colorado. Early starts are more common than in Colorado: 16.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.1% there. The morning rush looks much like Colorado's: 49.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.1% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (11.8%) 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 Lake 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 Lake 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 Lake 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.

• Lake County
• Colorado
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lake County	Colorado	United States
2009	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:18 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:13 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:13 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:12 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lake County were on the road by 7:30 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Colorado, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Lake County now leave 8 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 Lake County has moved 12 minutes later.

How does Lake County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lake County	Colorado	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.7 min	22.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.5%	21.0%	15.0%
Walked	5.3%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lake County is 20.7 minutes, shorter than the 22.0 minutes in Colorado.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.6% in Colorado. 5.3% commute by walking, higher than the 2.5% in Colorado.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau