Butler County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Butler County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Butler County spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 196 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 39% more time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 6.6 minutes.

Butler County holds about 0.4% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Butler County would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,431 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)
Butler County	23.5 min	47.1 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,078	340
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.

Commute Time Map: Iowa Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 23.5 minutes to get to work in Butler County. That's 5% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 92% of counties in Iowa

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Butler County

• Car: 90.6%
• Worked at Home: 6.5%
• Walked: 2.1%
• Other: 0.5%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Butler County: 23.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Butler County, versus 0.2% in Iowa.

Commute Mode Trends in Butler County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.2%	5.9%	3.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	90.2%	5.5%	3.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	90.0%	5.8%	2.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	89.6%	6.2%	3.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	90.7%	5.7%	2.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	89.7%	5.7%	3.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	90.1%	5.1%	3.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	90.7%	4.9%	3.3%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	90.7%	5.2%	3.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	90.1%	5.8%	3.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	91.0%	5.4%	2.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	91.4%	5.3%	2.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.1%	6.1%	2.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	91.0%	5.9%	2.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	91.0%	5.9%	2.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	90.6%	6.5%	2.1%	0.5%	0.2%	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 peaked in 2020 at 91.4%. Overall it rose from 89.2% in 2009 to 90.6% in 2024, up 1.4 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Butler County: its share of workers rose from 5.9% in 2009 to 6.5% in 2024, up 0.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.4% to 2.1% of workers (down 1.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Butler County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Butler County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Butler County5.5% Iowa5.2%	5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Butler County6.2% Iowa4.1%	6.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Butler County8.1% Iowa5.7%	8.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Butler County11.9% Iowa8.2%	11.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Butler County9.0% Iowa11.2%	9.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Butler County15.8% Iowa15.1%	15.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Butler County14.4% Iowa15.6%	14.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Butler County8.7% Iowa9.1%	8.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Butler County2.7% Iowa3.6%	2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Butler County4.1% Iowa4.4%	4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Butler County1.4% Iowa2.3%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Butler County0.8% Iowa1.1%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Butler County5.7% Iowa7.5%	5.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Butler County5.7% Iowa6.8%	5.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Butler County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 19.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 47.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.7%) 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 Butler 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 Butler 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 Butler County 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.

• Butler County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Butler County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:15 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:16 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:08 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Butler County were on the road by 7:18 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:14 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Butler County now leave 20 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 Butler County has moved 6 minutes later.

How does Butler County's commute time compare?

Metric	Butler County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.5 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.5%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Butler County is 23.5 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau