Bureau County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Bureau County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Bureau County spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 147 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 6.0 minutes.

Bureau County holds about 0.3% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Bureau County would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,826 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)
Bureau County	17.7 min	35.3 min	147 hrs/yr	$4,565	503
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.

Commute Time Map: Illinois Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Bureau County. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 5.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Bureau County

• Car: 90.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 5.4%
• Walked: 2.5%
• Bicycle: 0.7%
• Other: 0.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.2% unusually high
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Bureau County: 3.6 times more than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 23% more common in Bureau County than the Illinois average (90.7% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Bureau County: 46.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Bureau County, versus 0.3% in Illinois.

Commute Mode Trends in Bureau County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Bureau 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Bicycle
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	91.2%	4.1%	3.8%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	91.6%	3.5%	3.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	92.3%	3.1%	3.2%	0.1%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	92.5%	2.9%	3.1%	0.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	92.1%	3.5%	2.6%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%
2014	92.2%	3.6%	2.2%	0.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2015	92.6%	3.5%	1.9%	0.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%
2016	91.5%	3.9%	2.2%	0.2%	1.3%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%
2017	91.3%	4.2%	1.9%	0.4%	1.4%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%
2018	91.6%	4.4%	1.7%	0.2%	1.4%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2019	91.2%	4.2%	2.2%	0.2%	1.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	91.7%	4.4%	2.1%	0.2%	1.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	92.2%	5.0%	1.6%	0.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	91.6%	4.6%	2.2%	0.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	91.1%	4.4%	2.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	90.7%	5.4%	2.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2015 at 92.6%. Overall it fell from 91.2% in 2009 to 90.7% in 2024, down 0.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Bureau County: its share of workers rose from 4.1% in 2009 to 5.4% in 2024, up 1.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.8% to 2.5% of workers (down 1.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Bureau County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Bureau County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Bureau County8.5% Illinois5.6%	8.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Bureau County6.5% Illinois4.3%	6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Bureau County7.0% Illinois4.9%	7.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Bureau County8.0% Illinois9.0%	8.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Bureau County10.0% Illinois9.4%	10.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Bureau County14.0% Illinois14.3%	14.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Bureau County12.8% Illinois11.6%	12.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Bureau County6.9% Illinois11.2%	6.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Bureau County2.6% Illinois5.2%	2.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Bureau County3.9% Illinois6.1%	3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Bureau County2.6% Illinois2.9%	2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Bureau County0.7% Illinois1.5%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Bureau County8.6% Illinois7.7%	8.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Bureau County8.1% Illinois6.3%	8.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Bureau County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 21.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 43.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.9%) 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 Bureau 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 Bureau 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 Bureau County 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.

• Bureau County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Bureau County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Bureau County were on the road by 7:22 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:27 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Bureau County now leave 16 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Bureau County's commute time compare?

Metric	Bureau County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.4%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.5%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Bureau County is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau