Fayette County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Fayette County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fayette County spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 182 hours, about 7.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Fayette County 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 Fayette County would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,253 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)
Fayette County	21.8 min	43.6 min	182 hrs/yr	$5,633	498
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 21.8 minutes to get to work in Fayette County. That's 3% 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 7.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fayette County

• Car: 89.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 7.1%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 1.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Driving is 22% more common in Fayette County than the Illinois average (89.7% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Fayette County: 22.9 times less than the Illinois average (0.3% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Fayette County: 3.5 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Biking is essentially absent in Fayette County, versus 0.5% in Illinois.

Commute Mode Trends in Fayette County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fayette 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
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.5%	5.0%	1.7%	1.8%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2010	88.2%	5.8%	2.5%	1.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.2%
2011	88.8%	6.1%	2.4%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%
2012	89.3%	5.6%	2.4%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.6%	0.4%
2013	90.2%	5.0%	1.9%	1.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.6%
2014	90.4%	4.8%	2.3%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.6%
2015	91.7%	4.0%	1.8%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%
2016	92.5%	3.5%	2.1%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2017	92.9%	2.5%	2.2%	0.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	93.2%	2.0%	2.5%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2019	93.1%	2.1%	2.5%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.5%	0.1%
2020	92.1%	3.5%	2.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2021	90.1%	5.6%	2.8%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2022	91.1%	4.9%	2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%
2023	90.3%	6.7%	1.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.7%	7.1%	1.6%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2018 at 93.2% and lowest in 2010 at 88.2%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 89.5% in 2009 and 89.7% in 2024. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fayette County: its share of workers rose from 5.0% in 2009 to 7.1% in 2024, up 2.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.6% to 0.3% of workers (down 1.3 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 2.9% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 1.6%.

Commute Start Times in Fayette County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fayette County?

The bars show when commuters in Fayette 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 Fayette County8.9% Illinois5.6%	8.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Fayette County5.1% Illinois4.3%	5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Fayette County5.4% Illinois4.9%	5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Fayette County10.9% Illinois9.0%	10.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Fayette County11.2% Illinois9.4%	11.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Fayette County13.9% Illinois14.3%	13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Fayette County19.8% Illinois11.6%	19.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Fayette County5.9% Illinois11.2%	5.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Fayette County2.8% Illinois5.2%	2.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Fayette County3.0% Illinois6.1%	3.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Fayette County1.4% Illinois2.9%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Fayette County0.3% Illinois1.5%	0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Fayette County5.6% Illinois7.7%	5.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Fayette County5.9% Illinois6.3%	5.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Fayette County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.6% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 19.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Illinois: 50.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.1%) 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 Fayette 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 Fayette 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 Fayette 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.

• Fayette County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Fayette County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 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	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fayette County were on the road by 7:19 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Illinois, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Fayette County now leave 19 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 Fayette County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Fayette County's commute time compare?

Metric	Fayette County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.8 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	7.1%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fayette County is 21.8 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau