Knox County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Knox 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, 8:35 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Knox County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:35 PM

Commute Time Burden in Knox County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Knox 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 116 hours, about 4.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 41% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 9.7 minutes.

Knox County holds about 0.4% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Knox County would save about 47 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,443 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)
Knox County	14.0 min	27.9 min	116 hrs/yr	$3,609	427
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

Knox County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 14.0 minutes to get to work in Knox County. That's 38% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 90% 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 5.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Knox County

Public transit is unusually rare in Knox County: 11.5 times less than the Illinois average (0.5% vs 5.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Knox County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Knox 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	Taxi	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	91.6%	3.0%	3.6%	0.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	91.2%	2.7%	3.8%	0.1%	0.9%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	90.8%	2.9%	3.7%	0.1%	0.7%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2012	90.8%	3.0%	3.9%	0.1%	0.4%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%
2013	90.7%	3.0%	4.0%	0.0%	0.5%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%
2014	91.6%	2.5%	4.2%	0.0%	0.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2015	90.7%	2.9%	4.7%	0.0%	0.5%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%
2016	91.1%	2.5%	4.4%	0.0%	0.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	90.8%	2.7%	4.7%	0.1%	0.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%
2018	91.1%	2.6%	4.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2019	90.0%	3.2%	4.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%
2020	90.6%	3.8%	3.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	89.2%	4.3%	4.7%	0.1%	0.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	90.6%	4.8%	3.1%	0.1%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	89.3%	5.7%	3.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	88.0%	5.7%	4.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 91.6% in 2009 to 88.0% in 2024, down 3.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Knox County: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 5.7% in 2024, up 2.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Knox County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Knox County?

The bars show when commuters in Knox 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		4.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Knox County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 17.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 47.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.1%) 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 Knox 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 Knox 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 Knox 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	Knox County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Knox County were on the road by 7:29 AM, 13 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:42 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Knox County now leave 9 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 Knox County has moved 10 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Knox County in the whole series.

How does Knox County's commute time compare?

Metric	Knox County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	14.0 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	5.7%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	4.1%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Knox County is 14.0 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.5% 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

Knox County, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Knox County, IL is the 2nd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 49,044 residents against a local median of 33,018. Where Knox County, IL breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 29% below the local median of 8.0% at 5.7%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 14.0 min against a local median of 18.8 min, 26% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 26% below the local median it puts Knox County, IL at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 6.3% on work from home, so Knox County, IL sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Knox County, IL has the 5th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Knox County, IL	49,044	14.0 min #2/6	5.7% #5/6	7:29 AM #5/6
Warren County, IL	16,447	13.6 min	7.4%	7:26 AM
Henry County, IL	48,639	20.7 min	8.7%	7:21 AM
Stark County, IL	5,307	25.2 min	8.0%	7:10 AM
Fulton County, IL	33,018	18.8 min	5.1%	7:20 AM
Peoria County, IL	179,437	17.4 min	11.4%	7:39 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Knox County, Illinois.

Is commuting expensive in Knox County, Illinois?

Commuters here spend an estimated 116 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,609 at a typical national wage. That's 41% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Knox County, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Knox 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 Knox County, Illinois?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.5% of commuters use it versus 5.8% in Illinois, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in Illinois have the fastest and slowest commutes?

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).