Cherokee County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Cherokee County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cherokee County 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.

Cherokee County holds about 0.4% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cherokee County would save about 42 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,310 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)
Cherokee County	12.7 min	25.4 min	106 hrs/yr	$3,276	315
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 12.7 minutes to get to work in Cherokee County. That's 43% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 86% 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 8.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Cherokee County

• Car: 85.7%
• Worked at Home: 8.6%
• Walked: 3.8%
• Public Transportation: 0.7%
• Other: 0.7%
• Motorcycle: 0.5% unusually high
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Cherokee County: 4.9 times more than the Iowa average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

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

Biking is essentially absent in Cherokee County, versus 0.3% in Iowa.

Commute Mode Trends in Cherokee County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	89.1%	6.6%	3.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	89.0%	6.7%	3.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	90.0%	6.1%	3.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	90.4%	5.3%	3.3%	0.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	89.1%	7.2%	2.9%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	90.9%	5.9%	2.6%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	90.8%	5.5%	2.8%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.0%	6.3%	2.0%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	90.1%	7.7%	1.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	90.0%	6.4%	3.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	89.0%	7.4%	3.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.7%	8.5%	3.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	87.4%	9.1%	3.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	86.4%	9.0%	3.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.7%	7.3%	2.3%	0.7%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.7%	8.6%	3.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.5%	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 2016 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 89.1% in 2009 to 85.7% in 2024, down 3.4 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cherokee County: its share of workers rose from 6.6% in 2009 to 8.6% in 2024, up 2.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Cherokee County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cherokee County?

The bars show when commuters in Cherokee 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 Cherokee County7.0% Iowa5.2%	7.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Cherokee County3.5% Iowa4.1%	3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Cherokee County6.4% Iowa5.7%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Cherokee County7.6% Iowa8.2%	7.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Cherokee County14.3% Iowa11.2%	14.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Cherokee County15.9% Iowa15.1%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Cherokee County15.3% Iowa15.6%	15.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Cherokee County8.0% Iowa9.1%	8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Cherokee County2.0% Iowa3.6%	2.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Cherokee County5.6% Iowa4.4%	5.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Cherokee County2.0% Iowa2.3%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Cherokee County0.2% Iowa1.1%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Cherokee County2.5% Iowa7.5%	2.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Cherokee County9.6% Iowa6.8%	9.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Cherokee County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 16.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 53.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.0%) 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 Cherokee 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 Cherokee 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 Cherokee 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.

• Cherokee County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Cherokee County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:34 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cherokee County were on the road by 7:21 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:20 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Cherokee County now leave 17 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 Cherokee County has moved 13 minutes earlier.

How does Cherokee County's commute time compare?

Metric	Cherokee County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.7 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	8.6%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	3.8%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	0.7%	3.2%

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

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Iowa. 3.8% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau