Darien Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

Updated 22 September 2026

You 11/2/26, 3:30 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Darien?

Map AI 11/2/26, 3:30 PM

Commute Time Burden in Darien: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Darien spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 212 hours, about 8.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Darien holds about 0.2% of Illinois's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Darien would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,623 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)
Darien	25.4 min	50.8 min	212 hrs/yr	$6,559	4,298
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.

Darien Commute Map

On average, it takes 25.4 minutes to get to work in Darien. That's 13% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 20.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Darien

Walking is unusually rare in Darien: 4.4 times less than the Illinois average (0.6% vs 2.8%).

Biking is unusually rare in Darien: 26.3 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Darien: just 0.7%, 5.1 times below the Illinois average of 3.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Darien, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Darien 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	Public Transportation	Other	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	88.2%	4.4%	4.5%	0.7%	1.0%	0.1%	0.3%	0.7%
2010	87.9%	3.8%	5.1%	0.5%	1.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.5%
2011	87.8%	4.3%	4.9%	0.4%	1.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%
2012	86.9%	4.7%	5.3%	0.4%	1.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%
2013	88.6%	4.2%	4.3%	0.4%	1.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	89.0%	4.4%	3.6%	0.5%	1.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	88.4%	5.0%	4.5%	0.4%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	88.3%	5.4%	4.7%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	86.9%	5.7%	5.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	86.3%	6.0%	6.5%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	86.5%	6.5%	5.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	82.5%	11.2%	5.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	80.9%	13.5%	4.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	78.8%	16.3%	3.5%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	76.7%	18.1%	3.0%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	74.1%	20.7%	3.0%	1.2%	0.6%	0.3%	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 2014 at 89.0%. Overall it fell from 88.2% in 2009 to 74.1% in 2024, down 14.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Darien: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 20.7% in 2024, up 16.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 14.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.5% to 3.0% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2019 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Darien

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Darien?

The bars show when commuters in Darien 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		2.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		13.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Darien is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 13.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 9.4% across Illinois. Early starts are less common than in Illinois: 10.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 46.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.2%) 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 Darien, 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 Darien 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 Darien 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	Darien	Illinois	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:39 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Darien were on the road by 7:46 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:37 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Darien 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 Darien has moved 11 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Darien in the whole series.

How does Darien's commute time compare?

Metric	Darien	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.4 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	20.7%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.0%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Darien is 25.4 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

3.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Darien, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Darien, IL is the smallest of the 4 cities compared here, 21,208 residents against a local median of 32,108. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest cities, which makes Darien, IL an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 12% below the local median at 20.7% against 23.4%. Darien, IL has the 4th highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Darien, IL	21,208	25.4 min #3/4	20.7% #4/4	7:46 AM #3/4
Westmont, IL	23,509	25.3 min	24.7%	7:37 AM
Woodridge, IL	32,108	26.1 min	21.0%	7:45 AM
Downers Grove, IL	51,779	24.0 min	23.4%	7:54 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Darien, Illinois.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Darien, Illinois?

Commuters here spend an estimated 212 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,559 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Darien, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM in Darien, Illinois. 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.

Is Darien, Illinois a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 20.7% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Darien would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,623 at the same national wage assumption used above.