Douglas County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Douglas County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Douglas County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 143 hours, about 6.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 6.4 minutes.

Douglas County 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 Douglas County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,777 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)
Douglas County	17.2 min	34.4 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,442	500
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 17.2 minutes to get to work in Douglas County. That's 23% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 73% of counties in Illinois

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Douglas County

• Car: 83.5%
• Worked at Home: 6.0%
• Walked: 4.1%
• Bicycle: 4.0% unusually high
• Other: 1.3%
• Taxi: 1.1% unusually high
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Douglas County, versus 0.1% in Illinois.

Public transit is unusually rare in Douglas County: 119037857212.2 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Douglas County: 3.3 times more than the Illinois average (1.1% vs 0.3%).

Biking is unusually common in Douglas County: 7.4 times more than the Illinois average (4.0% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Douglas County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Douglas 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
• Taxi
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle
2009	87.5%	4.9%	3.5%	3.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	86.6%	5.5%	3.3%	3.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	84.9%	5.5%	4.2%	4.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	86.0%	5.6%	3.6%	4.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	86.8%	5.5%	3.2%	3.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	86.2%	4.9%	3.8%	3.4%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	85.6%	5.3%	4.1%	3.0%	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	86.4%	5.6%	3.4%	2.8%	1.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	86.1%	5.5%	3.5%	2.9%	1.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	85.2%	5.6%	4.1%	3.4%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	85.3%	5.4%	4.4%	3.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	85.9%	4.9%	4.9%	3.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	85.7%	4.6%	3.5%	4.2%	1.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	84.6%	5.2%	4.1%	4.4%	0.8%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	84.4%	4.7%	4.2%	4.4%	1.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	83.5%	6.0%	4.1%	4.0%	1.3%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 87.5% in 2009 to 83.5% in 2024, down 4.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Taking a taxi gained the most ground in Douglas County: its share of workers rose from 0.0% in 2009 to 1.1% in 2024, up 1.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Taking a taxi overtook public transit to become the 6th most common choice in the 2018 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Douglas County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Douglas County?

The bars show when commuters in Douglas 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 Douglas County5.3% Illinois5.6%	5.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Douglas County5.8% Illinois4.3%	5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Douglas County8.9% Illinois4.9%	8.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Douglas County13.4% Illinois9.0%	13.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Douglas County11.9% Illinois9.4%	11.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Douglas County14.4% Illinois14.3%	14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Douglas County11.0% Illinois11.6%	11.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Douglas County8.9% Illinois11.2%	8.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Douglas County2.0% Illinois5.2%	2.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Douglas County2.6% Illinois6.1%	2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Douglas County1.7% Illinois2.9%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Douglas County1.5% Illinois1.5%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Douglas County4.7% Illinois7.7%	4.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Douglas County7.9% Illinois6.3%	7.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Douglas County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 20.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 46.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.5%) 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 Douglas 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 Douglas 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 Douglas 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.

• Douglas County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Douglas County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:10 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Douglas County were on the road by 7:10 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:16 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Douglas County now leave 28 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Douglas County has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Douglas County in the whole series.

How does Douglas County's commute time compare?

Metric	Douglas County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.2 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.0%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	4.1%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Douglas County is 17.2 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 4.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau