Mason County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Mason County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Mason County spend about 57 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 237 hours, about 9.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 4.9 minutes.

Mason 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 Mason County would save about 95 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,943 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)
Mason County	28.5 min	57.0 min	237 hrs/yr	$7,358	406
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 28.5 minutes to get to work in Mason County. That's 27% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 94% 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 8.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Mason County

• Car: 87.4%
• Worked at Home: 8.2%
• Walked: 2.2%
• Other: 1.6%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.2% unusually high
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Mason County: 3.2 times more than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Mason County: 22.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.3% vs 5.8%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Mason County: 7.2 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Mason County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Mason 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
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	91.9%	3.6%	2.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	89.9%	4.2%	3.6%	1.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%
2011	90.4%	3.3%	3.6%	1.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%
2012	91.0%	3.8%	3.3%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.6%	0.0%
2013	92.1%	2.9%	2.9%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2014	90.9%	3.6%	3.6%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2015	91.5%	3.5%	3.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2016	92.0%	3.3%	3.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%
2017	92.3%	2.6%	3.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%
2018	91.7%	3.7%	3.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2019	91.5%	4.1%	2.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	89.9%	5.9%	2.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2021	88.7%	7.4%	2.5%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	88.0%	8.4%	1.4%	1.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	8.2%	1.5%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	87.4%	8.2%	2.2%	1.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 92.3%. Overall it fell from 91.9% in 2009 to 87.4% in 2024, down 4.5 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Mason County: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 8.2% in 2024, up 4.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.7% to 2.2% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Mason County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Mason County?

The bars show when commuters in Mason 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 Mason County8.3% Illinois5.6%	8.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Mason County7.4% Illinois4.3%	7.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Mason County10.2% Illinois4.9%	10.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Mason County11.3% Illinois9.0%	11.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Mason County7.3% Illinois9.4%	7.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Mason County15.7% Illinois14.3%	15.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Mason County11.9% Illinois11.6%	11.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Mason County7.1% Illinois11.2%	7.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Mason County2.5% Illinois5.2%	2.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Mason County3.4% Illinois6.1%	3.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Mason County1.3% Illinois2.9%	1.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Mason County0.2% Illinois1.5%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Mason County8.7% Illinois7.7%	8.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Mason County4.8% Illinois6.3%	4.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Mason County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 25.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 42.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.4%) 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 Mason 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 Mason 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 Mason 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.

• Mason County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Mason County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:10 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:09 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:08 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:11 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Mason County were on the road by 7:11 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:15 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Mason County now leave 27 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Mason County's commute time compare?

Metric	Mason County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.5 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	8.2%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.2%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Mason County is 28.5 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau