Burlington Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:58 PM

Is the commute in Burlington longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:58 PM

Commute Time Burden in Burlington: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Burlington spend about 25 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 106 hours, about 4.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.3 minutes.

Burlington holds about 0.7% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Burlington would save about 42 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,309 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)
Burlington	12.7 min	25.3 min	106 hrs/yr	$3,272	584
Iowa	17.0 min	33.9 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,382	606
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.

Burlington Commute Map

On average, it takes 12.7 minutes to get to work in Burlington. That's 43% 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 4.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Burlington

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Burlington, versus 0.1% in Iowa.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Burlington: 3.7 times more than the Iowa average (0.6% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Burlington, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Burlington 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	Public Transportation	Walked	Taxi	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	94.0%	1.7%	0.7%	1.6%	0.4%	0.8%	0.6%	0.2%
2010	93.5%	1.8%	0.8%	1.6%	0.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.2%
2011	92.3%	2.4%	0.7%	2.2%	1.0%	0.6%	0.8%	0.1%
2012	91.6%	2.0%	1.0%	2.1%	1.3%	0.8%	1.0%	0.2%
2013	93.5%	2.1%	0.6%	1.9%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%
2014	92.3%	2.5%	0.5%	2.2%	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%
2015	92.1%	1.9%	0.5%	3.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%
2016	90.5%	1.9%	0.6%	3.7%	0.8%	1.3%	0.9%	0.4%
2017	89.9%	1.9%	0.9%	3.3%	0.7%	2.2%	0.7%	0.4%
2018	89.6%	2.0%	0.5%	4.2%	0.9%	1.9%	0.6%	0.4%
2019	89.5%	2.2%	0.6%	4.1%	0.8%	2.0%	0.4%	0.4%
2020	90.1%	2.3%	0.7%	3.3%	1.1%	2.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	89.3%	3.0%	0.6%	3.9%	1.4%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	88.9%	4.1%	0.2%	4.6%	1.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	91.2%	4.8%	0.8%	1.6%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.4%	4.9%	1.3%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2022 at 88.9%. Overall it fell from 94.0% in 2009 to 91.4% in 2024, down 2.6 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Burlington: its share of workers rose from 1.7% in 2009 to 4.9% in 2024, up 3.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.6% in 2022 and has since fallen back to 1.2%.

Commute Start Times in Burlington

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Burlington?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		7.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		9.3%

Burlington Iowa Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Burlington is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 16.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Iowa's: 49.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.3%) 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 Burlington, 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 Burlington 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 Burlington next to Iowa 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	Burlington	Iowa	United States
2009	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:34 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:40 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:34 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:40 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Burlington were on the road by 7:40 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:47 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Burlington now leave 2 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 Burlington has moved 8 minutes later.

How does Burlington's commute time compare?

Metric	Burlington	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.7 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.9%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Burlington is 12.7 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

1.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.7% in Iowa. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Burlington, Iowa.

Is living in Burlington, Iowa good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 106 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,272 at a typical national wage. That's 25% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Burlington, Iowa?

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