Dubuque Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Dubuque, 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, 3:59 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:59 PM

Commute Time Burden in Dubuque: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dubuque spend about 25 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 105 hours, about 4.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 26% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.3 minutes.

Dubuque holds about 1.7% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dubuque would save about 42 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,306 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)
Dubuque	12.6 min	25.3 min	105 hrs/yr	$3,264	1,527
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.

Dubuque Commute Map

On average, it takes 12.6 minutes to get to work in Dubuque. That's 44% 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 11.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dubuque

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Dubuque: 2673065.6 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Dubuque: 3.5 times more than the Iowa average (0.6% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Dubuque, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Dubuque 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	Taxi	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	88.5%	3.2%	6.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%
2010	88.9%	3.0%	6.0%	1.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	89.3%	2.4%	6.5%	1.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	89.0%	2.8%	6.1%	1.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	89.2%	3.5%	5.4%	1.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	88.4%	3.2%	6.0%	1.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%
2015	88.2%	3.8%	5.5%	1.5%	0.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2016	88.1%	3.8%	5.1%	1.8%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	88.6%	3.7%	4.9%	1.5%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	89.1%	3.5%	4.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%
2019	89.6%	3.5%	4.2%	1.5%	0.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	87.1%	6.1%	4.1%	1.4%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	86.5%	7.8%	3.5%	1.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	84.8%	9.3%	3.5%	1.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	82.7%	10.6%	3.7%	1.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2024	82.6%	11.6%	3.1%	1.3%	0.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2019 at 89.6%. Overall it fell from 88.5% in 2009 to 82.6% in 2024, down 5.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Dubuque: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 11.6% in 2024, up 8.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 6.6% to 3.1% of workers (down 3.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Dubuque

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dubuque?

The bars show when commuters in Dubuque 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		4.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		4.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dubuque is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are about as common as in Iowa: 14.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Iowa's: 50.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.7%) 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 Dubuque, 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 Dubuque 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 Dubuque 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	Dubuque	Iowa	United States
2009	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:47 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:46 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:40 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dubuque were on the road by 7:43 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:49 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Dubuque now leave 5 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 Dubuque has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Dubuque's commute time compare?

Metric	Dubuque	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.6 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	11.6%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	3.1%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dubuque is 12.6 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

1.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.7% in Iowa. 3.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Dubuque, Iowa.

Is commuting expensive in Dubuque, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 105 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,264 at a typical national wage. That's 26% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

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

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