Effingham County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Effingham County, 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, 7:58 PM

How much time do drivers in Effingham County spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 7:58 PM

Commute Time Burden in Effingham County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Effingham County spend about 28 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 115 hours, about 4.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 42% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 9.8 minutes.

Effingham 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 Effingham County would save about 46 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,426 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)
Effingham County	13.8 min	27.6 min	115 hrs/yr	$3,566	728
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Illinois

Edgar County (12.0 min)
Brown County (12.7 min)
Morgan County (13.1 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Illinois

Calhoun County (43.8 min)
Pulaski County (31.2 min)
Pope County (31.0 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Effingham County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 13.8 minutes to get to work in Effingham County. That's 38% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 91% of counties in Illinois

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 11.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Effingham County

Public transit is unusually rare in Effingham County: 33.6 times less than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 5.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Effingham County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Effingham 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.

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	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	90.6%	5.4%	1.9%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	91.4%	5.1%	1.5%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	91.7%	4.7%	1.4%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	91.9%	4.7%	1.5%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	92.7%	4.2%	1.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	92.3%	4.3%	1.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	93.3%	3.8%	1.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	93.6%	3.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	93.2%	3.4%	1.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	92.5%	3.4%	2.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	91.7%	3.6%	3.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	88.8%	6.6%	3.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	86.8%	8.8%	2.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	85.7%	10.4%	2.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	85.9%	10.9%	2.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	85.2%	11.8%	1.8%	0.5%	0.3%	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 2016 at 93.6%. Overall it fell from 90.6% in 2009 to 85.2% in 2024, down 5.4 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Effingham County: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 11.8% in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 3.1% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 1.8%.

Commute Start Times in Effingham County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Effingham County?

The bars show when commuters in Effingham 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		4.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		14.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		2.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Effingham County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are about as common as in Illinois: 13.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Illinois: 53.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.4%) 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 Effingham 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 Effingham 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 Effingham 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Effingham County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Effingham County were on the road by 7:21 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Effingham County now leave 17 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 Effingham County has moved 9 minutes earlier.

How does Effingham County's commute time compare?

Metric	Effingham County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.8 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	11.8%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Effingham County is 13.8 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Effingham County, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Effingham County, IL is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 34,520 residents against a local median of 13,048. Where Effingham County, IL breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 65% above the local median of 7.1% at 11.8%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 13.8 min against a local median of 20.4 min, 32% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 32% below the local median it puts Effingham County, IL at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 4.1% on work from home, so Effingham County, IL sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Effingham County, IL has the highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Effingham County, IL	34,520	13.8 min #1/6	11.8% #1/6	7:21 AM #5/6
Clay County, IL	13,048	16.9 min	4.4%	7:18 AM
Shelby County, IL	20,718	17.2 min	6.5%	7:19 AM
Cumberland County, IL	10,330	20.4 min	8.5%	7:23 AM
Fayette County, IL	21,314	21.8 min	7.1%	7:18 AM
Jasper County, IL	9,180	23.0 min	8.2%	7:13 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Effingham County, Illinois.

Is living in Effingham County, Illinois good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 115 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,566 at a typical national wage. That's 42% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Effingham County, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Effingham County, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Effingham County, Illinois?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 5.8% in Illinois, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among counties in Illinois?

Among counties in Illinois, the shortest average commutes are in Edgar County (12.0 min), Brown County (12.7 min), Morgan County (13.1 min). The longest are in Calhoun County (43.8 min), Pulaski County (31.2 min), Pope County (31.0 min).