Wapello County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Wapello 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, 2:34 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Wapello County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:34 PM

Commute Time Burden in Wapello County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wapello County spend about 28 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 116 hours, about 4.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Wapello County holds about 1.1% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Wapello County would save about 46 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,437 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)
Wapello County	13.9 min	27.8 min	116 hrs/yr	$3,592	563
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

Wapello County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 13.9 minutes to get to work in Wapello County. That's 38% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 73% of counties in Iowa

The most common departure window is 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 5.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wapello County

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Wapello County: 5.3 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Wapello County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Wapello 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	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	91.3%	3.3%	2.3%	0.4%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.9%
2010	92.0%	2.7%	2.3%	0.5%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.8%
2011	91.4%	3.1%	2.6%	0.5%	1.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.8%
2012	91.4%	3.2%	2.3%	1.0%	1.4%	0.0%	0.5%	0.2%
2013	90.6%	3.3%	2.5%	1.3%	1.5%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2014	91.3%	3.3%	2.1%	1.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.4%	0.4%
2015	90.8%	2.9%	2.0%	3.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2016	91.4%	3.3%	1.8%	2.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2017	92.5%	2.8%	2.2%	1.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	93.5%	2.3%	1.9%	1.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	93.4%	2.6%	1.7%	1.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	94.0%	3.0%	1.8%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	93.5%	3.4%	2.1%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	91.9%	4.2%	2.1%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	91.7%	4.6%	1.7%	1.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	90.5%	5.5%	1.5%	1.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 94.0%. Overall it fell from 91.3% in 2009 to 90.5% in 2024, down 0.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wapello County: its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 5.5% in 2024, up 2.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Riding a motorcycle lost the most ground, falling from 0.9% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Wapello County

Rush-Hour DodgersThe lowest share of rush-hour departures among Iowa's 99 counties: only 37.8% of commuters leave between 6:30 and 8:29 AM.
Sleeping InThe 3rd-highest share of 9 AM-or-later starts among Iowa's 99 counties: 31.4% of commuters leave at 9 AM or later.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wapello County?

The bars show when commuters in Wapello 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		10.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		5.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		15.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wapello County is 12:00-3:59 PM, when 15.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 7.5% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 22.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Iowa: 37.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (31.4%) 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 Wapello 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 Wapello 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 Wapello 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	Wapello County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:33 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:34 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wapello County were on the road by 7:33 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Iowa, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Wapello County now leave 5 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 Wapello County has moved 6 minutes later.

How does Wapello County's commute time compare?

Metric	Wapello County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.9 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	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	5.5%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wapello County is 13.9 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.7% in Iowa. 1.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Wapello County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Wapello County, IA is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 35,362 residents against a local median of 9,157. Wapello County, IA's work from home, at 5.5%, runs 39% below the 9.0% typical of the counties around it.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 13.9 min against a local median of 20.9 min, 33% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 33% below the local median it puts Wapello County, IA at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 10.7% on work from home, so Wapello County, IA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Wapello County, IA has the 6th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Wapello County, IA	35,362	13.9 min #2/6	5.5% #6/6	7:33 AM #5/6
Davis County, IA	9,157	20.9 min	11.5%	7:07 AM
Mahaska County, IA	22,021	15.9 min	7.5%	7:18 AM
Keokuk County, IA	7,337	25.1 min	8.7%	7:06 AM
Monroe County, IA	7,513	30.4 min	9.0%	7:14 AM
Jefferson County, IA	15,705	12.6 min	18.2%	7:52 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Wapello County, Iowa.

Is living in Wapello County, Iowa good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 116 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,592 at a typical national wage. That's 18% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Wapello County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM in Wapello County, Iowa. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

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).