Hardin County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Hardin 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, 8:22 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:22 PM

Commute Time Burden in Hardin County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Hardin 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 135 hours, about 5.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Hardin 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 Hardin County would save about 54 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,680 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)
Hardin County	16.3 min	32.5 min	135 hrs/yr	$4,200	292
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

Hardin County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 16.3 minutes to get to work in Hardin County. That's 27% 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 9.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Hardin County

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

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Hardin County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Hardin 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	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	86.5%	5.3%	6.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.6%	0.3%
2010	88.5%	4.3%	5.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	1.1%
2011	88.7%	4.3%	4.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	1.0%
2012	88.1%	4.9%	4.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	1.1%
2013	90.1%	4.0%	4.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.8%
2014	90.4%	4.4%	2.8%	1.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.9%
2015	91.0%	4.4%	2.9%	1.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	91.2%	4.3%	3.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	91.4%	3.6%	3.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	90.5%	5.0%	3.2%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	89.0%	6.1%	3.3%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	88.2%	6.9%	3.5%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	86.3%	8.0%	3.6%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2022	84.8%	9.7%	3.5%	1.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	83.4%	9.5%	4.8%	1.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2024	83.9%	9.0%	4.7%	1.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2017 at 91.4% and lowest in 2023 at 83.4%. Overall it fell from 86.5% in 2009 to 83.9% in 2024, down 2.6 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Hardin County: its share of workers rose from 5.3% in 2009 to 9.0% in 2024, up 3.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 6.7% to 4.7% of workers (down 2.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2018 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Hardin County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Hardin County?

The bars show when commuters in Hardin 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		7.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		14.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Hardin County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are about as common as in Iowa: 15.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 54.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.7%) 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 Hardin 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 Hardin 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 Hardin 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	Hardin County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Hardin County were on the road by 7:18 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:29 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Hardin County now leave 20 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 Hardin County has moved 14 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Hardin County in the whole series.

How does Hardin County's commute time compare?

Metric	Hardin County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.3 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	9.0%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	4.7%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Hardin County is 16.3 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Iowa. 4.7% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Hardin County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Hardin County, IA is typical in size for this group, 16,639 residents against a local median of 14,886, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Nothing separates Hardin County, IA sharply from the counties around it. Each measure below lands within 15% of the local median, close enough that the differences are within what survey sampling alone would produce.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 14% above the local median at 9.0% against 7.9%. Hardin County, IA has the 3rd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Hardin County, IA	16,639	16.3 min #4/6	9.0% #3/6	7:18 AM #3/6
Franklin County, IA	9,956	15.7 min	7.9%	7:15 AM
Story County, IA	100,466	15.2 min	11.8%	7:59 AM
Marshall County, IA	40,114	13.2 min	7.1%	7:26 AM
Grundy County, IA	12,384	21.6 min	9.5%	7:19 AM
Hamilton County, IA	14,886	17.1 min	6.1%	7:17 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Hardin County, Iowa.

Is living in Hardin County, Iowa good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 135 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,200 at a typical national wage. That's 4% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Hardin County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Hardin 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).