Clay County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Clay County, 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, 2:49 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Clay County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:49 PM

Commute Time Burden in Clay County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clay County spend about 24 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 99 hours, about 4.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 5.1 minutes.

Clay County holds about 0.5% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clay County would save about 39 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,222 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)
Clay County	11.8 min	23.7 min	99 hrs/yr	$3,056	276
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Iowa

Sioux County (10.1 min)
Union County (10.4 min)
Cass County (10.6 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Iowa

Monroe County (30.4 min)
Madison County (30.1 min)
Mills County (26.7 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Clay County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 11.8 minutes to get to work in Clay County. That's 47% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 93% of counties in Iowa

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 6.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clay County

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Clay County: 4.1 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Clay County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clay 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.

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	80.0%	12.9%	6.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.0%
2010	87.2%	6.2%	5.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	88.0%	5.7%	4.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	88.4%	5.5%	3.9%	0.5%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	87.7%	6.3%	4.3%	0.4%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	87.7%	6.1%	3.6%	0.4%	0.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	87.6%	6.2%	3.6%	0.3%	1.1%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	89.9%	6.0%	2.3%	0.1%	0.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	89.3%	6.6%	2.1%	0.3%	0.4%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	88.2%	7.4%	2.1%	0.2%	0.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	89.0%	6.5%	2.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	88.7%	6.6%	3.1%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	86.0%	8.7%	3.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	87.4%	7.7%	3.6%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.7%	6.5%	4.2%	1.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.3%	6.1%	3.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	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 89.9%. Overall it rose from 80.0% in 2009 to 89.3% in 2024, up 9.3 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 3 releases.

Public transit gained the most ground in Clay County: its share of workers rose from 0.0% in 2009 to 0.8% in 2024, up 0.8 percentage points.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 12.9% to 6.1% of workers (down 6.8 percentage points).

Public transit overtook biking to become the 4th most common choice in the 2019 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Clay County

Hitting SnoozeThe 3rd-biggest shift to later mornings among Iowa's 99 counties: the typical start is 11 minutes later than in 2009.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clay County?

The bars show when commuters in Clay 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		6.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		4.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		24.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Clay County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 24.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 17.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 48.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.9%) 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 Clay 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 Clay 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 Clay 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.

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

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clay County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:36 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clay County were on the road by 7:44 AM, 11 minutes later than in 2009 (7:33 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Clay County now leave 6 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 Clay County has moved 11 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Clay County in the whole series.

How does Clay County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clay County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.8 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	6.1%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	3.4%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clay County is 11.8 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.7% in Iowa. 3.4% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Clay County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Clay County, IA is the 3rd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 16,461 residents against a local median of 14,126. Clay County, IA sits close to the middle of its own neighbourhood. No measure below is more than 15% off the local median, so the choice between these counties turns on things this data does not capture.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 11% below the local median at 6.1% against 6.8%. Clay County, IA has the 4th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Clay County, IA	16,461	11.8 min #2/6	6.1% #4/6	7:44 AM #6/6
Dickinson County, IA	17,990	13.9 min	10.5%	7:36 AM
Buena Vista County, IA	20,753	11.1 min	5.6%	7:39 AM
Palo Alto County, IA	8,863	12.3 min	4.9%	7:29 AM
O'Brien County, IA	14,126	13.5 min	7.1%	7:18 AM
Emmet County, IA	9,262	13.2 min	6.8%	7:19 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Clay County, Iowa.

Is commuting expensive in Clay County, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 99 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,056 at a typical national wage. That's 30% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Clay County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Clay County, 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.

Which counties in Iowa have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Iowa, the shortest average commutes are in Sioux County (10.1 min), Union County (10.4 min), Cass County (10.6 min). The longest are in Monroe County (30.4 min), Madison County (30.1 min), Mills County (26.7 min).