Lake County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Lake 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, 8:29 PM

Is the commute in Lake County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:29 PM

Commute Time Burden in Lake County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lake County spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 213 hours, about 8.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.9 minutes.

Lake County holds about 5.6% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 6.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lake County would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,642 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)
Lake County	25.6 min	51.1 min	213 hrs/yr	$6,605	2,906
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

Lake County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 25.6 minutes to get to work in Lake County. That's 14% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 85% of counties in Illinois

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lake County

Biking is unusually rare in Lake County: 4.0 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Lake County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lake 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	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	86.4%	5.4%	4.2%	2.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	85.6%	5.9%	4.1%	3.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	85.5%	6.2%	4.2%	2.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	85.3%	6.4%	4.2%	2.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	85.0%	6.4%	4.2%	2.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	85.0%	6.3%	4.2%	3.2%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	85.1%	6.1%	4.3%	3.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	85.1%	6.3%	4.3%	3.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	85.0%	6.5%	4.4%	2.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	85.1%	6.5%	4.5%	2.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2019	85.1%	6.9%	4.4%	2.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	82.7%	9.7%	4.3%	2.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2021	80.3%	12.6%	3.8%	2.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	78.5%	14.7%	3.3%	2.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2023	76.4%	17.3%	2.8%	2.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	74.2%	19.5%	2.7%	2.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 86.4% in 2009 to 74.2% in 2024, down 12.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lake County: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 19.5% in 2024, up 14.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.2% to 2.7% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Lake County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lake County?

The bars show when commuters in Lake 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		4.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lake County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are less common than in Illinois: 13.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Illinois: 48.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.7%) 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 Lake 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 Lake 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 Lake 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	Lake County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 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	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:33 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lake County were on the road by 7:37 AM, 11 minutes later than in 2009 (7:27 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Lake County now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Lake County has moved 6 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Lake County in the whole series.

How does Lake County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lake County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.6 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	19.5%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.7%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lake County is 25.6 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

2.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lake County, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Lake County, IL is the 4th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 714,026 residents against a local median of 925,807. The measure that sets Lake County, IL apart most is work from home: 19.5%, 35% above the local median of 14.4%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 25.6 min against a local median of 21.2 min, 20% above it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 20% above the local median it puts Lake County, IL at the weaker end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 11.5% on work from home, so Lake County, IL sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Lake County, IL has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lake County, IL	714,026	25.6 min #5/6	19.5% #2/6	7:37 AM #3/6
Kenosha County, WI	168,436	21.0 min	10.7%	7:31 AM
Cook County, IL	5,180,889	30.6 min	18.9%	7:47 AM
Racine County, WI	197,532	21.2 min	9.9%	7:19 AM
DuPage County, IL	929,812	23.6 min	21.5%	7:44 AM
Milwaukee County, WI	925,807	20.7 min	14.4%	7:42 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lake County, Illinois.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 213 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,605 at a typical national wage. That's 8% more than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Lake County, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

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).