Decatur Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Decatur, 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, 3:57 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:57 PM

Commute Time Burden in Decatur: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Decatur spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 129 hours, about 5.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 34% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 8.1 minutes.

Decatur holds about 0.5% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Decatur would save about 52 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,602 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)
Decatur	15.5 min	31.0 min	129 hrs/yr	$4,004	1,542
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.

Decatur Commute Map

On average, it takes 15.5 minutes to get to work in Decatur. That's 31% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Decatur

Public transit is unusually rare in Decatur: 4.2 times less than the Illinois average (1.4% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Decatur: 80.4 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Decatur, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Decatur 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	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	92.2%	1.4%	2.9%	1.8%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	91.5%	1.5%	3.2%	1.9%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	91.9%	1.2%	2.8%	2.0%	1.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	91.8%	1.5%	2.8%	2.0%	1.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	91.6%	1.8%	3.0%	1.8%	1.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	91.2%	2.1%	2.8%	2.2%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	92.0%	2.3%	2.3%	1.9%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	91.1%	3.0%	2.7%	1.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	90.8%	3.2%	2.5%	2.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	90.6%	3.1%	2.6%	2.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2019	91.5%	2.8%	2.5%	2.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2020	90.1%	4.3%	2.7%	2.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	89.1%	5.0%	2.8%	2.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	88.4%	5.9%	2.8%	1.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	87.3%	7.3%	2.6%	1.4%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	86.0%	8.3%	2.8%	1.4%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 92.2% in 2009 to 86.0% in 2024, down 6.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Decatur: its share of workers rose from 1.4% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 6.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2016 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Decatur

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Decatur?

The bars show when commuters in Decatur 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		6.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Decatur is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.6% across Illinois. Early starts are about as common as in Illinois: 14.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 48.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.2%) 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 Decatur, 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 Decatur 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 Decatur 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	Decatur	Illinois	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:41 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Decatur were on the road by 7:41 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Illinois, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Decatur now leave 3 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Decatur's commute time compare?

Metric	Decatur	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.5 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	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.3%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.8%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.4%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Decatur is 15.5 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

1.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Decatur, Illinois.

Is commuting expensive in Decatur, Illinois?

Commuters here spend an estimated 129 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,004 at a typical national wage. That's 34% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Decatur, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Decatur, 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.

Do people use public transit in Decatur, Illinois?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 1.4% of commuters use it versus 5.8% in Illinois, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.