Mahaska County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Mahaska County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Mahaska County spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 133 hours, about 5.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.0 minutes.

Mahaska County holds about 0.7% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Mahaska County would save about 53 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,647 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)
Mahaska County	15.9 min	31.9 min	133 hrs/yr	$4,117	430
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 15.9 minutes to get to work in Mahaska County. That's 29% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Mahaska County

• Car: 88.9%
• Worked at Home: 7.5%
• Walked: 3.0%
• Other: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Mahaska County: 4.1 times less than the Iowa average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Mahaska County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	85.7%	7.2%	5.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.6%
2010	85.1%	7.2%	5.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.8%
2011	87.4%	6.0%	4.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.7%
2012	87.7%	5.4%	5.2%	0.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.8%
2013	87.5%	5.4%	5.5%	0.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	88.7%	5.4%	4.2%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%
2015	88.7%	4.7%	4.1%	0.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.9%
2016	88.5%	4.5%	4.2%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	1.1%
2017	89.0%	4.9%	3.3%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	1.1%
2018	87.5%	5.2%	4.5%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	1.1%
2019	88.1%	5.0%	4.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2020	87.4%	5.8%	5.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2021	87.6%	5.9%	5.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2022	88.7%	5.9%	4.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	89.6%	6.3%	3.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	88.9%	7.5%	3.0%	0.3%	0.2%	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 was highest in 2023 at 89.6% and lowest in 2010 at 85.1%. Overall it rose from 85.7% in 2009 to 88.9% in 2024, up 3.2 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.1% to 3.0% of workers (down 2.1 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Mahaska County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Mahaska County?

The bars show when commuters in Mahaska 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 Mahaska County9.1% Iowa5.2%	9.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Mahaska County8.9% Iowa4.1%	8.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Mahaska County8.1% Iowa5.7%	8.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Mahaska County7.5% Iowa8.2%	7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Mahaska County9.2% Iowa11.2%	9.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Mahaska County12.3% Iowa15.1%	12.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Mahaska County17.3% Iowa15.6%	17.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Mahaska County8.8% Iowa9.1%	8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Mahaska County1.3% Iowa3.6%	1.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Mahaska County2.3% Iowa4.4%	2.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Mahaska County1.0% Iowa2.3%	1.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Mahaska County0.6% Iowa1.1%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Mahaska County6.9% Iowa7.5%	6.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Mahaska County6.8% Iowa6.8%	6.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Mahaska County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 17.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 26.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 47.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.6%) 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 Mahaska 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 Mahaska 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 Mahaska 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.

• Mahaska County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Mahaska County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Mahaska 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 Mahaska 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 Mahaska County has moved 12 minutes earlier.

How does Mahaska County's commute time compare?

Metric	Mahaska County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.9 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.5%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Mahaska County is 15.9 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 3.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau