Jones County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Jones 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, 5:17 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 5:17 PM

Commute Time Burden in Jones County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jones County spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 181 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% more time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.7 minutes.

Jones County holds about 0.7% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jones County would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,238 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)
Jones County	21.7 min	43.3 min	181 hrs/yr	$5,596	322
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

Jones County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 21.7 minutes to get to work in Jones County. That's 3% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 90% 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 11.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Jones County

Public transit is unusually rare in Jones County: 3.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Jones County: 5.5 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Jones County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Jones 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	88.5%	4.7%	5.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2010	89.5%	5.4%	3.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2011	91.1%	5.1%	2.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	91.0%	5.6%	2.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	90.9%	5.6%	2.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	90.9%	5.1%	3.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	91.4%	4.4%	3.2%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	90.5%	4.9%	3.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	89.2%	6.3%	3.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	87.6%	7.2%	4.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	85.9%	9.2%	3.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	85.9%	10.5%	2.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	84.4%	11.8%	3.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	84.7%	10.5%	3.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2023	86.1%	11.3%	1.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.0%	11.9%	2.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2015 at 91.4% and lowest in 2021 at 84.4%. Overall it fell from 88.5% in 2009 to 85.0% in 2024, down 3.5 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jones County: its share of workers rose from 4.7% in 2009 to 11.9% in 2024, up 7.2 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.1% to 2.3% of workers (down 2.8 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in Jones County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jones County?

The bars show when commuters in Jones 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		7.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		13.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		6.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jones County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 21.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 48.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.1%) 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 Jones 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 Jones 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 Jones 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	Jones County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:10 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:12 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:12 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:11 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:09 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jones County were on the road by 7:09 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:15 AM). Iowa followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Jones County now leave 28 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 Jones County has moved 5 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Jones County in the whole series.

How does Jones County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jones County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.7 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	11.9%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jones County is 21.7 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.3% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Jones County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Jones County, IA is typical in size for this group, 20,896 residents against a local median of 19,390, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Where Jones County, IA breaks from the counties next to it is one-way commute, sitting 28% above the local median of 16.9 min at 21.7 min. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

The counties themselves spread 10.3 min on one-way commute, so Jones County, IA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Jones County, IA has the 5th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Jones County, IA	20,896	21.7 min #5/6	11.9% #4/6	7:09 AM #1/6
Cedar County, IA	18,349	24.0 min	12.1%	7:12 AM
Delaware County, IA	17,558	15.3 min	9.2%	7:20 AM
Dubuque County, IA	99,026	13.7 min	12.0%	7:31 AM
Linn County, IA	230,016	16.9 min	14.7%	7:36 AM
Jackson County, IA	19,390	20.7 min	10.3%	7:10 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Jones County, Iowa.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Jones County, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 181 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,596 at a typical national wage. That's 28% more than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Jones County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Jones 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 common is public transit use in Jones County, Iowa?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.7% in Iowa, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in Iowa have the fastest and slowest commutes?

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).