Granite City Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Granite City: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Granite City spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 177 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 2.4 minutes.

Granite City 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 Granite City would save about 71 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,189 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)
Granite City	21.2 min	42.4 min	177 hrs/yr	$5,473	1,809
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.

Granite City Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.2 minutes to get to work in Granite City. 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 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Granite City

• Car: 88.5% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 8.6%
• Public Transportation: 1.2% unusually low
• Walked: 0.9% unusually low
• Other: 0.4%
• Taxi: 0.4%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Granite City: 191.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 20% more common in Granite City than the Illinois average (88.5% vs 73.7%).

Walking is unusually rare in Granite City: 3.2 times less than the Illinois average (0.9% vs 2.8%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Granite City: 4.7 times less than the Illinois average (1.2% vs 5.8%).

Biking is essentially absent in Granite City, versus 0.5% in Illinois.

Few people walk or bike to work in Granite City: just 0.9%, 3.8 times below the Illinois average of 3.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Granite City, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Granite City 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
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Taxi
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Walked	Taxi	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	93.7%	2.0%	1.1%	2.1%	0.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	93.3%	2.4%	2.0%	1.2%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%
2011	94.1%	2.3%	2.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	93.6%	2.9%	1.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	93.4%	2.4%	2.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	93.0%	2.2%	3.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	93.1%	2.2%	3.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	92.5%	2.5%	3.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	92.6%	2.0%	4.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	93.5%	2.2%	3.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.8%	2.8%	3.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.3%	3.1%	2.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.7%	6.1%	2.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	91.3%	6.2%	1.6%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.9%	7.7%	1.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	88.5%	8.6%	1.2%	0.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 94.1%. Overall it fell from 93.7% in 2009 to 88.5% in 2024, down 5.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Granite City: its share of workers rose from 2.0% in 2009 to 8.6% in 2024, up 6.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.1% to 0.9% of workers (down 1.2 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 4.1% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 1.2%.

Commute Start Times in Granite City

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Granite City?

The bars show when commuters in Granite City 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 Granite City8.2% Illinois5.6%	8.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Granite City6.1% Illinois4.3%	6.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Granite City6.7% Illinois4.9%	6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Granite City9.3% Illinois9.0%	9.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Granite City11.0% Illinois9.4%	11.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Granite City11.7% Illinois14.3%	11.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Granite City10.6% Illinois11.6%	10.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Granite City8.3% Illinois11.2%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Granite City3.2% Illinois5.2%	3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Granite City3.7% Illinois6.1%	3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Granite City1.4% Illinois2.9%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Granite City1.0% Illinois1.5%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Granite City10.5% Illinois7.7%	10.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Granite City8.2% Illinois6.3%	8.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Granite City is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 11.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 21.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 41.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.9%) 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 Granite City, 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 Granite City 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 Granite City 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.

• Granite City
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Granite City	Illinois	United States
2009	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Granite City were on the road by 7:22 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:26 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Granite City now leave 16 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 Granite City has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Granite City's commute time compare?

Metric	Granite City	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.2 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.6%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.2%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Granite City is 21.2 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

1.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau