Urbandale Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Urbandale: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Urbandale spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 148 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% more time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.8 minutes.

Urbandale holds about 1.3% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 1.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Urbandale would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,837 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)
Urbandale	17.8 min	35.6 min	148 hrs/yr	$4,593	2,968
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.

Urbandale Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.8 minutes to get to work in Urbandale. That's 21% 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 17.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Urbandale

• Car: 79.8%
• Worked at Home: 17.1%
• Other: 1.8%
• Walked: 0.7% unusually low
• Public Transportation: 0.5%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually rare in Urbandale: 3.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.7% vs 2.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Urbandale: 26.7 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Urbandale: 5.7 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Urbandale: just 0.8%, 4.0 times below the Iowa average of 3.2%.

Commute Mode Trends in Urbandale, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Urbandale 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
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	94.0%	3.2%	0.6%	0.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	93.7%	3.6%	0.6%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	93.9%	3.3%	0.7%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	93.7%	3.7%	0.5%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	92.7%	4.6%	0.4%	0.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	92.1%	5.4%	0.3%	1.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	92.3%	5.4%	0.3%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	92.1%	5.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2017	92.4%	5.4%	0.2%	0.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	92.8%	5.2%	0.1%	0.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2019	93.6%	4.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	89.6%	7.8%	1.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	85.8%	11.7%	1.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	83.6%	14.0%	1.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	80.9%	15.9%	2.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	79.8%	17.1%	1.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.0% in 2009 to 79.8% in 2024, down 14.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Urbandale: its share of workers rose from 3.2% in 2009 to 17.1% in 2024, up 13.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.2% to 0.5% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Urbandale

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Urbandale?

The bars show when commuters in Urbandale 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 Urbandale3.2% Iowa5.2%	3.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Urbandale3.0% Iowa4.1%	3.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Urbandale3.4% Iowa5.7%	3.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Urbandale5.8% Iowa8.2%	5.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Urbandale9.4% Iowa11.2%	9.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Urbandale18.3% Iowa15.1%	18.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Urbandale19.0% Iowa15.6%	19.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Urbandale10.6% Iowa9.1%	10.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Urbandale7.1% Iowa3.6%	7.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Urbandale4.4% Iowa4.4%	4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Urbandale2.7% Iowa2.3%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Urbandale2.0% Iowa1.1%	2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Urbandale5.1% Iowa7.5%	5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Urbandale5.9% Iowa6.8%	5.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Urbandale is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are less common than in Iowa: 9.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 57.3% 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 Urbandale, 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 Urbandale 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 Urbandale 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.

• Urbandale
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Urbandale	Iowa	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Urbandale were on the road by 7:41 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:38 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Urbandale now leave 3 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Urbandale has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Urbandale's commute time compare?

Metric	Urbandale	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.8 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	17.1%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Urbandale is 17.8 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau