Guthrie County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Guthrie County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Guthrie County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 172 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% more time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.6 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Guthrie County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,129 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)
Guthrie County	20.6 min	41.2 min	172 hrs/yr	$5,323	275
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 20.6 minutes to get to work in Guthrie County. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 82% 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 11.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Guthrie County

• Car: 84.2%
• Worked at Home: 11.8%
• Walked: 2.7%
• Other: 1.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Guthrie County: 8.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Guthrie County: 8.2 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Guthrie County: 5.8 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Guthrie County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.2%	7.4%	2.5%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	88.5%	7.5%	2.9%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	88.8%	6.7%	3.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	88.6%	6.9%	3.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	88.7%	6.4%	3.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	88.2%	6.0%	4.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	88.2%	6.5%	4.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	88.9%	6.1%	3.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	89.3%	5.3%	4.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	90.2%	4.9%	3.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	91.4%	4.7%	3.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	89.9%	5.9%	3.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	88.6%	7.3%	3.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	86.6%	9.2%	2.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	86.4%	9.7%	2.6%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.2%	11.8%	2.7%	1.1%	0.1%	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 2019 at 91.4%. Overall it fell from 89.2% in 2009 to 84.2% in 2024, down 5.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Guthrie County: its share of workers rose from 7.4% in 2009 to 11.8% in 2024, up 4.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.6% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 2.7%.

Commute Start Times in Guthrie County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Guthrie County?

The bars show when commuters in Guthrie 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 Guthrie County5.6% Iowa5.2%	5.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Guthrie County7.1% Iowa4.1%	7.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Guthrie County6.2% Iowa5.7%	6.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Guthrie County9.6% Iowa8.2%	9.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Guthrie County11.6% Iowa11.2%	11.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Guthrie County19.3% Iowa15.1%	19.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Guthrie County16.2% Iowa15.6%	16.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Guthrie County9.8% Iowa9.1%	9.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Guthrie County1.3% Iowa3.6%	1.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Guthrie County3.2% Iowa4.4%	3.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Guthrie County2.0% Iowa2.3%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Guthrie County0.2% Iowa1.1%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Guthrie County5.3% Iowa7.5%	5.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Guthrie County2.7% Iowa6.8%	2.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Guthrie County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 18.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 56.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (13.3%) 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 Guthrie 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 Guthrie 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 Guthrie 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.

• Guthrie County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Guthrie County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:17 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:14 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:11 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:10 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:08 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:09 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:08 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:09 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:13 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Guthrie County were on the road by 7:15 AM, 1 minute 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 Guthrie County now leave 22 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 Guthrie County has moved 6 minutes later.

How does Guthrie County's commute time compare?

Metric	Guthrie County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.6 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	11.8%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.7%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Guthrie County is 20.6 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau