Iowa County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Iowa County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Iowa County spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 157 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 11% more time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Iowa County holds about 0.5% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Iowa County would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,941 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)
Iowa County	18.8 min	37.6 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,853	471
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 18.8 minutes to get to work in Iowa County. That's 16% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 77% of counties in Iowa

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Iowa County

• Car: 88.8%
• Worked at Home: 8.1%
• Walked: 2.6%
• Other: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Iowa County: 7.3 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Iowa County: 7.2 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Iowa County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Iowa 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
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.7%	5.0%	4.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2010	89.0%	5.0%	5.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	89.2%	5.8%	4.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	89.2%	5.7%	4.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	88.3%	6.6%	4.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	87.8%	6.5%	4.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	88.7%	6.1%	4.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	89.0%	5.9%	4.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	89.8%	5.5%	3.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	92.3%	4.8%	2.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	91.0%	4.7%	2.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	90.5%	5.4%	2.7%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	89.9%	6.0%	3.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	88.7%	7.4%	2.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	87.2%	8.2%	3.1%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	88.8%	8.1%	2.6%	0.3%	0.1%	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 2018 at 92.3% and lowest in 2023 at 87.2%. Overall it fell from 89.7% in 2009 to 88.8% in 2024, down 0.9 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Iowa County: its share of workers rose from 5.0% in 2009 to 8.1% in 2024, up 3.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.2% to 2.6% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Iowa County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Iowa County?

The bars show when commuters in Iowa 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 Iowa County4.2% Iowa5.2%	4.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Iowa County7.0% Iowa4.1%	7.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Iowa County5.8% Iowa5.7%	5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Iowa County13.5% Iowa8.2%	13.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Iowa County12.1% Iowa11.2%	12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Iowa County16.2% Iowa15.1%	16.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Iowa County12.9% Iowa15.6%	12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Iowa County5.7% Iowa9.1%	5.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Iowa County2.5% Iowa3.6%	2.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Iowa County5.2% Iowa4.4%	5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Iowa County0.8% Iowa2.3%	0.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Iowa County0.6% Iowa1.1%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Iowa County8.3% Iowa7.5%	8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Iowa County5.2% Iowa6.8%	5.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Iowa County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 16.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 47.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.1%) 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 Iowa 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 Iowa 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 Iowa 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.

• Iowa County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Iowa County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:14 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:05 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:13 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:16 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Iowa County were on the road by 7:14 AM, 13 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:27 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Iowa County now leave 24 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 Iowa County has moved 9 minutes later.

How does Iowa County's commute time compare?

Metric	Iowa County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.8 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.1%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.6%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Iowa County is 18.8 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau