Alton Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Alton, Illinois: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 3:55 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Alton?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:55 PM

Commute Time Burden in Alton: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Alton spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 152 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.4 minutes.

Alton holds about 0.2% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Alton would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,885 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)
Alton	18.2 min	36.5 min	152 hrs/yr	$4,713	2,348
Illinois	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,104	1,547
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.

Alton Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.2 minutes to get to work in Alton. That's 19% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Alton

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Alton: 3.4 times more than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Alton: 4.0 times less than the Illinois average (1.5% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Alton: 3.1 times more than the Illinois average (1.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Alton, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Alton 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	Public Transportation	Taxi	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	93.6%	2.8%	1.2%	1.1%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	92.8%	2.8%	1.5%	1.3%	0.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	92.9%	2.2%	1.7%	1.8%	0.2%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	93.6%	2.2%	1.4%	1.3%	0.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	93.5%	1.8%	1.7%	1.7%	0.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%
2014	93.1%	1.7%	1.8%	2.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2015	92.9%	2.1%	1.7%	2.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	93.2%	2.0%	1.6%	2.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	93.1%	2.3%	1.5%	2.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	92.4%	3.0%	1.7%	1.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	92.6%	3.1%	1.7%	1.3%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	91.3%	5.3%	1.3%	1.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	87.6%	7.5%	1.7%	1.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	86.3%	7.9%	2.2%	1.5%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	86.5%	8.2%	2.0%	1.5%	0.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	84.2%	9.8%	2.0%	1.5%	1.1%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 93.6% in 2009 to 84.2% in 2024, down 9.4 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Alton: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 9.8% in 2024, up 7.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit peaked at 2.6% in 2015 and has since fallen back to 1.5%.

Commute Start Times in Alton

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Alton?

The bars show when commuters in Alton 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 Illinois for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		10.9%

Alton Illinois Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Alton is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 12.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.6% across Illinois. Early starts are about as common as in Illinois: 14.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 44.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (30.8%) 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 Alton, 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 Alton 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 Alton next to Illinois 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	Alton	Illinois	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Alton were on the road by 7:46 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:43 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Alton now leave 8 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 Alton has moved 5 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Alton in the whole series.

How does Alton's commute time compare?

Metric	Alton	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.2 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.8%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.5%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Alton is 18.2 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

1.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Alton, Illinois.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Alton, Illinois?

Commuters here spend an estimated 152 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,713 at a typical national wage. That's 23% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Alton, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Alton, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Alton, Illinois?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 1.5% of commuters use it versus 5.8% in Illinois, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.