Buffalo Grove Commute Time Map & Patterns
HelpCommuting in Buffalo Grove, Illinois: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.
Updated
Commute Time Burden in Buffalo Grove: Annual Hours and Cost
Commuters in Buffalo Grove spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 195 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.
Buffalo Grove holds about 0.3% of Illinois's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.
Working from home just 2 days a week in Buffalo Grove would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,412 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffalo Grove | 23.3 min | 46.7 min | 195 hrs/yr | $6,030 | 3,967 |
| 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.
Buffalo Grove Commute Map
On average, it takes 23.3 minutes to get to work in Buffalo Grove. That's 4% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.
The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 30.8% work from home.
How People Get to Work in Buffalo Grove
- Car: 63.4%
- Worked at Home: 30.8%
- Public Transportation: 3.7%
- Other: 0.8%
- Walked: 0.8% unusually low
- Taxi: 0.2%
- Bicycle: 0.2% unusually low
- Motorcycle: < 0.1%
Walking is unusually rare in Buffalo Grove: 3.6 times less than the Illinois average (0.8% vs 2.8%).
Biking is unusually rare in Buffalo Grove: 3.4 times less than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 0.5%).
Few people walk or bike to work in Buffalo Grove: just 0.9%, 3.5 times below the Illinois average of 3.3%.
Commute Mode Trends in Buffalo Grove, 2009-2024
This chart shows how workers in Buffalo Grove 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.
Show commute mode data by year
| Year | Car | Worked at Home | Public Transportation | Walked | Other | Taxi | Bicycle | Motorcycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 89.2% | 4.7% | 4.1% | 0.6% | 1.1% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2010 | 88.5% | 5.1% | 4.6% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2011 | 89.3% | 5.1% | 4.0% | 0.5% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| 2012 | 89.0% | 5.0% | 4.3% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 0.0% |
| 2013 | 87.7% | 5.9% | 4.7% | 0.4% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| 2014 | 87.2% | 5.8% | 5.4% | 0.4% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| 2015 | 87.3% | 5.9% | 5.1% | 0.5% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| 2016 | 86.3% | 6.5% | 5.6% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| 2017 | 86.0% | 6.8% | 5.7% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2018 | 85.3% | 6.8% | 6.4% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2019 | 84.3% | 7.3% | 6.6% | 0.7% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2020 | 78.4% | 13.8% | 6.3% | 0.5% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2021 | 74.2% | 18.8% | 5.4% | 0.4% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2022 | 70.7% | 22.9% | 4.5% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| 2023 | 67.5% | 27.1% | 3.5% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| 2024 | 63.4% | 30.8% | 3.7% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 89.3%. Overall it fell from 89.2% in 2009 to 63.4% in 2024, down 25.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 9 releases.
Working from home gained the most ground in Buffalo Grove: its share of workers rose from 4.7% in 2009 to 30.8% in 2024, up 26.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 23.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.
Public transit peaked at 6.6% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 3.7%.
Commute Start Times in Buffalo Grove
What Time Do People Leave for Work in Buffalo Grove?
The bars show when commuters in Buffalo Grove 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 |
12:00-4:59 AM
Buffalo Grove2.7%
Illinois5.6%
|
2.7% |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00-5:29 AM |
5:00-5:29 AM
Buffalo Grove1.9%
Illinois4.3%
|
1.9% |
| 5:30-5:59 AM |
5:30-5:59 AM
Buffalo Grove3.6%
Illinois4.9%
|
3.6% |
| 6:00-6:29 AM |
6:00-6:29 AM
Buffalo Grove5.8%
Illinois9.0%
|
5.8% |
| 6:30-6:59 AM |
6:30-6:59 AM
Buffalo Grove7.4%
Illinois9.4%
|
7.4% |
| 7:00-7:29 AM |
7:00-7:29 AM
Buffalo Grove16.0%
Illinois14.3%
|
16.0% |
| 7:30-7:59 AM |
7:30-7:59 AM
Buffalo Grove13.9%
Illinois11.6%
|
13.9% |
| 8:00-8:29 AM |
8:00-8:29 AM
Buffalo Grove14.7%
Illinois11.2%
|
14.7% |
| 8:30-8:59 AM |
8:30-8:59 AM
Buffalo Grove9.5%
Illinois5.2%
|
9.5% |
| 9:00-9:59 AM |
9:00-9:59 AM
Buffalo Grove9.5%
Illinois6.1%
|
9.5% |
| 10:00-10:59 AM |
10:00-10:59 AM
Buffalo Grove4.0%
Illinois2.9%
|
4.0% |
| 11:00-11:59 AM |
11:00-11:59 AM
Buffalo Grove1.8%
Illinois1.5%
|
1.8% |
| 12:00-3:59 PM |
12:00-3:59 PM
Buffalo Grove5.9%
Illinois7.7%
|
5.9% |
| 4:00-11:59 PM |
4:00-11:59 PM
Buffalo Grove3.3%
Illinois6.3%
|
3.3% |
Buffalo Grove Illinois Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates
The busiest time to head out in Buffalo Grove is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are less common than in Illinois: 8.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Illinois: 52.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.5%) 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 Buffalo Grove, 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 Buffalo Grove 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 Buffalo Grove 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.
Show typical departure times by year
| Year | Buffalo Grove | Illinois | United States |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 7:47 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2010 | 7:42 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2011 | 7:44 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2012 | 7:47 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2013 | 7:45 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:39 AM |
| 2014 | 7:47 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:39 AM |
| 2015 | 7:48 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2016 | 7:47 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2017 | 7:49 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2018 | 7:51 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2019 | 7:48 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2020 | 7:50 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2021 | 7:55 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2022 | 7:51 AM | 7:35 AM | 7:37 AM |
| 2023 | 7:53 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:38 AM |
| 2024 | 7:57 AM | 7:36 AM | 7:38 AM |
In 2024, half of commuters in Buffalo Grove were on the road by 7:57 AM, 10 minutes later than in 2009 (7:47 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Buffalo Grove now leave 19 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 Buffalo Grove has moved 9 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Buffalo Grove in the whole series.
How does Buffalo Grove's commute time compare?
| Metric | Buffalo Grove | Illinois | US Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. Commute Time | 23.3 min | 23.6 min | 22.4 min |
| Departure Window | 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM | 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM | 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM |
| Secondary Departure Window | 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM | 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM | 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM |
| Work From Home | 30.8% | 15.9% | 15.0% |
| Walked | 0.8% | 2.8% | 2.4% |
| Public Transit | 3.7% | 5.8% | 3.2% |
The average commute time in Buffalo Grove is 23.3 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.
3.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.
Buffalo Grove, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities
How Buffalo Grove, IL compares with the 2 cities closest to it.
| Area | Population | One-way commute | Work from home | Typical departure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffalo Grove, IL | 36,064 | 23.3 min #2/3 | 30.8% #1/3 | 7:57 AM #3/3 |
| Wheeling, IL | 35,608 | 22.4 min | 13.9% | 7:44 AM |
| Vernon Hills, IL | 22,177 | 25.1 min | 30.1% | 7:54 AM |
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about commuting in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
How much does the average commute cost workers in Buffalo Grove, Illinois?
Commuters here spend an estimated 195 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,030 at a typical national wage. That's 1% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.
When is rush hour worst in Buffalo Grove, Illinois?
Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.
How much money can remote workers save in Buffalo Grove, Illinois?
About 30.8% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Buffalo Grove would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,412 at the same national wage assumption used above.