Decatur Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Decatur, Georgia: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 3:54 PM

How much time do drivers in Decatur spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:54 PM

Commute Time Burden in Decatur: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Decatur spend about 48 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 200 hours, about 8.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% more time on the road than the Georgia average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.

Decatur holds about 0.2% of Georgia's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Decatur would save about 80 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,478 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)
Decatur	24.0 min	48.0 min	200 hrs/yr	$6,196	3,406
Georgia	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,109	1,447
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.

Decatur Commute Map

On average, it takes 24.0 minutes to get to work in Decatur. That's 7% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 37.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Decatur

Driving is 35% less common in Decatur than the Georgia average (51.7% vs 79.8%).

Walking is unusually common in Decatur: 3.9 times more than the Georgia average (5.0% vs 1.3%).

Public transit is unusually common in Decatur: 4.2 times more than the Georgia average (4.6% vs 1.1%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Decatur: 8.3 times less than the Georgia average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Biking is unusually common in Decatur: 5.0 times more than the Georgia average (0.8% vs 0.2%).

Decatur stands out for active commuting: 5.7% of workers walk or bike to work, 4.0 times the Georgia average of 1.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Decatur, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Decatur 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	77.8%	8.6%	4.1%	7.4%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.4%
2010	76.8%	9.9%	3.6%	7.2%	1.1%	0.9%	0.1%	0.4%
2011	77.0%	10.0%	3.5%	7.6%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	76.3%	10.4%	3.8%	7.3%	0.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	77.3%	9.9%	3.9%	6.5%	0.6%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%
2014	76.8%	9.9%	4.1%	6.1%	0.8%	1.4%	0.5%	0.3%
2015	75.2%	11.0%	5.3%	5.9%	1.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%
2016	73.9%	12.0%	5.4%	5.3%	2.0%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%
2017	71.9%	12.7%	5.8%	6.6%	2.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%
2018	70.1%	13.9%	6.1%	7.2%	2.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%
2019	68.1%	13.5%	6.2%	8.6%	2.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	65.4%	18.0%	5.5%	7.7%	2.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%
2021	61.7%	24.4%	4.8%	7.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%
2022	57.4%	29.2%	5.5%	5.9%	1.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	54.8%	33.3%	5.3%	4.5%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	51.7%	37.3%	5.0%	4.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 77.8% in 2009 to 51.7% in 2024, down 26.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 11 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Decatur: its share of workers rose from 8.6% in 2009 to 37.3% in 2024, up 28.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 23.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 7.4% to 4.6% of workers (down 2.8 percentage points).

Biking peaked at 2.5% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 0.8%.

Commute Start Times in Decatur

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Decatur?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		0.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		0.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		1.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		19.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		8.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		13.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.1%

Decatur Georgia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Decatur is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 19.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.6% across Georgia. Early starts are less common than in Georgia: 2.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Georgia: 52.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (32.3%) 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 Decatur, 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 Decatur 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 Decatur next to Georgia 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Decatur	Georgia	United States
2009	8:11 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:11 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:16 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:15 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:15 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Decatur were on the road by 8:15 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (8:11 AM). Across Georgia, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Decatur now leave 37 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Decatur's commute time compare?

Metric	Decatur	Georgia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	24.0 min	23.6 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	37.3%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	5.0%	1.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	4.6%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Decatur is about the same as in Georgia.

4.6% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.1% in Georgia. 5.0% commute by walking, higher than the 1.3% in Georgia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Decatur, Georgia.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Decatur, Georgia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 200 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,196 at a typical national wage. That's 1% more than the typical Georgia commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Decatur, Georgia?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Decatur, Georgia. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Decatur, Georgia?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 4.6% of commuters use it versus 1.1% in Georgia, making it a realistic option for many workers.

Is Decatur, Georgia a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 37.3% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Decatur would save about 80 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,478 at the same national wage assumption used above.