Lansing Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Lansing, 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, 3:57 PM

Is the commute in Lansing longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:57 PM

Commute Time Burden in Lansing: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lansing spend about 62 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 259 hours, about 10.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 32% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 7.5 minutes.

Lansing holds about 0.2% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lansing would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,216 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)
Lansing	31.1 min	62.3 min	259 hrs/yr	$8,041	3,307
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.

Lansing Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.1 minutes to get to work in Lansing. That's 39% longer 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 10.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lansing

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

Commute Mode Trends in Lansing, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lansing 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	Other	Walked	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	90.8%	0.9%	6.0%	0.7%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	91.0%	1.4%	5.1%	0.9%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	90.4%	1.5%	6.0%	0.8%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	89.7%	1.6%	6.5%	1.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	88.5%	2.0%	6.7%	1.4%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	87.8%	2.1%	7.2%	1.4%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	88.5%	1.9%	7.1%	1.2%	1.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	88.0%	2.2%	6.6%	1.3%	1.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	88.8%	1.9%	6.0%	1.0%	1.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	88.7%	2.7%	5.7%	0.9%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	87.7%	3.4%	5.9%	0.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	86.8%	5.3%	5.4%	0.5%	1.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	83.8%	7.2%	4.6%	1.7%	2.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2022	82.1%	9.5%	4.1%	1.8%	1.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2023	82.5%	9.7%	3.6%	2.4%	1.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	82.2%	10.0%	2.9%	2.7%	1.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2010 at 91.0% and lowest in 2022 at 82.1%. Overall it fell from 90.8% in 2009 to 82.2% in 2024, down 8.6 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lansing: its share of workers rose from 0.9% in 2009 to 10.0% in 2024, up 9.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.0% to 2.9% of workers (down 3.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Lansing

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lansing?

The bars show when commuters in Lansing 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		8.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.6%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		7.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.5%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lansing is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 19.4% 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 (23.5%) 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 Lansing, 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 Lansing 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 Lansing 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	Lansing	Illinois	United States
2009	7:24 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	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lansing were on the road by 7:18 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:24 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Lansing now leave 20 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 Lansing has moved 8 minutes earlier.

How does Lansing's commute time compare?

Metric	Lansing	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.1 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	10.0%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.9%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lansing is 31.1 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

2.9% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 1.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lansing, IL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Lansing, IL is typical in size for this group, 25,475 residents against a local median of 23,727, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Lansing, IL sits close to the middle of its own neighbourhood. No measure below is more than 15% off the local median, so the choice between these cities turns on things this data does not capture.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 12% below the local median at 10.0% against 11.4%. Lansing, IL has the 3rd highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lansing, IL	25,475	31.1 min #2/4	10.0% #3/4	7:18 AM #1/4
Munster, IN	23,727	23.8 min	13.0%	7:32 AM
Calumet City, IL	34,245	31.5 min	9.1%	8:03 AM
South Holland, IL	22,419	31.8 min	11.4%	7:21 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lansing, Illinois.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Lansing, Illinois?

Commuters here spend an estimated 259 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,041 at a typical national wage. That's 32% more than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Lansing, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Lansing, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.