Fayette County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Fayette 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, 5:56 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 5:56 PM

Commute Time Burden in Fayette County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fayette County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 139 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.

Fayette County holds about 0.5% of Iowa's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fayette County would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,721 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)
Fayette County	16.7 min	33.3 min	139 hrs/yr	$4,304	251
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

Fayette County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 16.7 minutes to get to work in Fayette County. That's 26% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 7.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fayette County

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

Commute Mode Trends in Fayette County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fayette 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	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	85.3%	6.2%	6.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	83.9%	7.5%	7.2%	1.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	84.3%	7.9%	6.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	85.3%	7.7%	5.3%	0.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	85.7%	7.4%	5.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	84.8%	9.2%	5.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	84.2%	8.7%	5.9%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	84.5%	8.1%	5.8%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	82.8%	9.0%	6.2%	1.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	82.9%	9.2%	5.6%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	84.6%	8.2%	5.1%	1.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	86.0%	7.8%	3.7%	1.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	85.8%	8.2%	3.8%	1.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	86.8%	7.8%	3.9%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.0%	8.1%	3.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	87.1%	7.2%	4.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2017 at 82.8%. Overall it rose from 85.3% in 2009 to 87.1% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fayette County: its share of workers rose from 6.2% in 2009 to 7.2% in 2024, up 1.0 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 6.4% to 4.1% of workers (down 2.3 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 9.2% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 7.2%.

Commute Start Times in Fayette County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fayette County?

The bars show when commuters in Fayette 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		6.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		5.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Fayette County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 18.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 46.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.6%) 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 Fayette 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 Fayette 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 Fayette 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	Fayette County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fayette County were on the road by 7:20 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Fayette County now leave 18 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 Fayette County has moved 3 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Fayette County in the whole series.

How does Fayette County's commute time compare?

Metric	Fayette County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.7 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	7.2%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	4.1%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fayette County is about the same as in Iowa.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 4.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Fayette County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Fayette County, IA is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 16,443 residents against a local median of 19,872. The measure that sets Fayette County, IA apart most is work from home: 7.2%, 29% below the local median of 10.0%.

The counties themselves spread 3.7% on work from home, so Fayette County, IA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Fayette County, IA has the 6th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Fayette County, IA	16,443	16.7 min #3/6	7.2% #6/6	7:20 AM #4/6
Buchanan County, IA	20,694	20.6 min	8.4%	7:10 AM
Winneshiek County, IA	19,872	15.2 min	12.1%	7:29 AM
Bremer County, IA	25,204	20.1 min	11.3%	7:33 AM
Clayton County, IA	17,012	17.1 min	8.3%	7:13 AM
Chickasaw County, IA	11,807	15.5 min	10.0%	7:12 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Fayette County, Iowa.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Fayette County, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 139 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,304 at a typical national wage. That's 2% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Fayette County, Iowa?

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

How do commute times compare across counties in Iowa?

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).