Ford County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Ford County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Ford County spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 178 hours, about 7.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Ford County holds about 0.1% of Illinois's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Ford County would save about 71 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,209 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)
Ford County	21.4 min	42.8 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,523	401
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 21.4 minutes to get to work in Ford County. That's 5% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Ford County

• Car: 88.0%
• Worked at Home: 9.2%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 0.6%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Ford County: 36.3 times less than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Ford County, versus 0.3% in Illinois.

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

Commute Mode Trends in Ford County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Ford 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	91.1%	5.2%	2.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	92.5%	3.8%	3.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	92.6%	3.8%	3.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	92.9%	3.2%	3.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2013	93.7%	3.3%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%
2014	91.5%	4.2%	3.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2015	90.2%	4.9%	3.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2016	89.1%	4.8%	4.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.9%
2017	89.4%	4.9%	4.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	89.7%	4.8%	4.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2019	88.7%	5.8%	3.8%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	1.0%
2020	91.2%	5.3%	2.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2021	90.5%	7.1%	1.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2022	88.8%	8.6%	1.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	87.5%	8.8%	2.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2024	88.0%	9.2%	2.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	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 2013 at 93.7% and lowest in 2023 at 87.5%. Overall it fell from 91.1% in 2009 to 88.0% in 2024, down 3.1 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Ford County: its share of workers rose from 5.2% in 2009 to 9.2% in 2024, up 4.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.8% to 2.0% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Ford County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Ford County?

The bars show when commuters in Ford 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 Ford County8.5% Illinois5.6%	8.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Ford County5.4% Illinois4.3%	5.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Ford County6.4% Illinois4.9%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Ford County12.6% Illinois9.0%	12.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Ford County12.3% Illinois9.4%	12.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Ford County14.6% Illinois14.3%	14.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Ford County12.4% Illinois11.6%	12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Ford County8.0% Illinois11.2%	8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Ford County1.5% Illinois5.2%	1.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Ford County4.4% Illinois6.1%	4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Ford County1.7% Illinois2.9%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Ford County0.0% Illinois1.5%	0.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Ford County5.6% Illinois7.7%	5.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Ford County6.6% Illinois6.3%	6.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Ford County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 20.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 47.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.4%) 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 Ford 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 Ford 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 Ford 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.

• Ford County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Ford County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:15 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:09 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:07 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:10 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Ford County were on the road by 7:10 AM, 15 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:25 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Ford 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 Ford County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Ford County's commute time compare?

Metric	Ford County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.4 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	9.2%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Ford County is 21.4 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau