Lawrence County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lawrence County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lawrence County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 168 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 3.4 minutes.

Lawrence 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 Lawrence County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,089 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)
Lawrence County	20.2 min	40.4 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,223	586
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 20.2 minutes to get to work in Lawrence County. That's 10% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lawrence County

• Car: 86.5%
• Worked at Home: 8.4%
• Walked: 4.1%
• Other: 0.6%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Lawrence County: 3.8 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Lawrence County: 18.0 times less than the Illinois average (0.3% vs 5.8%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Lawrence County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lawrence 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	95.2%	1.9%	2.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2010	95.1%	2.3%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.8%
2011	94.2%	2.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2012	93.8%	2.6%	1.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	94.1%	3.3%	1.5%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	92.6%	3.6%	2.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	92.5%	3.8%	2.4%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	91.9%	4.2%	2.6%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	90.8%	5.0%	2.7%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	90.0%	5.8%	3.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.4%	4.7%	2.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.0%	3.9%	2.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	92.6%	4.8%	1.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	90.8%	5.1%	3.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	89.6%	6.0%	3.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.5%	8.4%	4.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 95.2% in 2009 to 86.5% in 2024, down 8.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lawrence County: its share of workers rose from 1.9% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2024, up 6.5 percentage points.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 0.6% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

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

Commute Start Times in Lawrence County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lawrence County?

The bars show when commuters in Lawrence 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 Lawrence County9.1% Illinois5.6%	9.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lawrence County7.5% Illinois4.3%	7.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lawrence County6.4% Illinois4.9%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lawrence County9.7% Illinois9.0%	9.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lawrence County8.5% Illinois9.4%	8.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lawrence County11.9% Illinois14.3%	11.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lawrence County11.8% Illinois11.6%	11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lawrence County6.5% Illinois11.2%	6.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lawrence County2.0% Illinois5.2%	2.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lawrence County3.3% Illinois6.1%	3.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lawrence County2.0% Illinois2.9%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lawrence County0.5% Illinois1.5%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lawrence County5.0% Illinois7.7%	5.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lawrence County15.7% Illinois6.3%	15.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lawrence County is 4:00-11:59 PM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 6.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 23.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 38.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.6%) 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 Lawrence 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 Lawrence 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 Lawrence 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.

• Lawrence County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lawrence County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:14 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lawrence County were on the road by 7:22 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:18 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Lawrence County 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 Lawrence County has moved 10 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Lawrence County in the whole series.

How does Lawrence County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lawrence County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.2 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	04:00 PM – 11:59 PM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.4%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	4.1%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lawrence County is 20.2 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.3% 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