Tama County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Tama 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, 8:32 PM

Is the commute in Tama County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:32 PM

Commute Time Burden in Tama County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Tama 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 171 hours, about 7.1 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.

Tama 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 Tama County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,124 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)
Tama County	20.6 min	41.1 min	171 hrs/yr	$5,309	377
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

Tama County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 20.6 minutes to get to work in Tama County. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 80% 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 8.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Tama County

Public transit is unusually rare in Tama County: 6.0 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Tama County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Tama 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi
2009	89.9%	5.6%	3.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	88.5%	5.2%	5.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2011	89.4%	4.8%	5.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	89.4%	4.4%	5.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2013	89.6%	4.3%	4.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	1.0%	0.0%
2014	90.6%	3.6%	4.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%
2015	91.2%	4.0%	3.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	1.4%	0.0%
2016	91.2%	3.7%	3.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	1.5%	0.0%
2017	91.5%	3.9%	3.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%	1.3%	0.0%
2018	90.3%	4.7%	3.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%
2019	90.2%	5.1%	3.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%
2020	89.0%	6.1%	3.9%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	88.6%	6.8%	3.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	88.6%	7.6%	2.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	8.3%	2.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.2%	8.7%	1.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	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 2017 at 91.5% and lowest in 2023 at 88.4%. Overall it fell from 89.9% in 2009 to 89.2% in 2024, down 0.7 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Tama County: its share of workers rose from 5.6% in 2009 to 8.7% in 2024, up 3.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.6% to 1.6% of workers (down 2.0 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Tama County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Tama County?

The bars show when commuters in Tama 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		6.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		6.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		0.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Tama County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 18.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Iowa's: 52.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (15.7%) 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 Tama 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 Tama 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 Tama 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	Tama County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:09 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:13 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Tama County were on the road by 7:14 AM, 12 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:26 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Tama 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 Tama County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Tama County's commute time compare?

Metric	Tama 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	8.7%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Tama 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. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Tama County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Tama County, IA is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 16,868 residents against a local median of 25,722. Where Tama County, IA breaks from the counties next to it is one-way commute, sitting 47% above the local median of 13.9 min at 20.6 min. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

The counties themselves spread 11.8 min on one-way commute, so Tama County, IA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Tama County, IA has the 4th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Tama County, IA	16,868	20.6 min #4/6	8.7% #5/6	7:14 AM #2/6
Poweshiek County, IA	18,545	11.9 min	14.0%	7:35 AM
Grundy County, IA	12,384	21.6 min	9.5%	7:19 AM
Black Hawk County, IA	130,985	13.9 min	8.9%	7:42 AM
Benton County, IA	25,722	23.7 min	11.5%	7:07 AM
Marshall County, IA	40,114	13.2 min	7.1%	7:26 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Tama County, Iowa.

Is commuting expensive in Tama County, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 171 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,309 at a typical national wage. That's 21% more than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Tama County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Tama 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.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Tama County, Iowa?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.1% of commuters use it versus 0.7% in Iowa, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

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).