Oak Forest Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Oak Forest, 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, 3:33 PM

Is the commute in Oak Forest longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:33 PM

Commute Time Burden in Oak Forest: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Oak Forest spend about 58 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 241 hours, about 10.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 5.4 minutes.

Oak Forest holds about 0.2% of Illinois's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Oak Forest would save about 97 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,995 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)
Oak Forest	29.0 min	58.0 min	241 hrs/yr	$7,486	4,240
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.

Oak Forest Commute Map

On average, it takes 29.0 minutes to get to work in Oak Forest. That's 29% 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 9.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Oak Forest

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

Commute Mode Trends in Oak Forest, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Oak Forest 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	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	88.5%	1.5%	9.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	89.3%	1.7%	8.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	89.6%	1.5%	7.8%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	89.8%	1.8%	7.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	89.8%	1.7%	7.7%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	90.2%	1.1%	7.7%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	87.7%	2.4%	8.6%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	87.4%	4.0%	7.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	87.3%	4.2%	7.6%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	87.7%	4.8%	6.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	87.5%	4.5%	6.2%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	85.0%	5.9%	6.8%	1.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	84.1%	8.0%	6.0%	1.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	83.4%	8.7%	5.8%	1.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	82.9%	8.7%	6.5%	1.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	82.9%	9.5%	5.3%	1.0%	0.7%	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 peaked in 2014 at 90.2%. Overall it fell from 88.5% in 2009 to 82.9% in 2024, down 5.6 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Oak Forest: its share of workers rose from 1.5% in 2009 to 9.5% in 2024, up 8.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 9.3% to 5.3% of workers (down 4.0 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 Oak Forest

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Oak Forest?

The bars show when commuters in Oak Forest 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		9.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		7.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Oak Forest is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 22.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 40.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.0%) 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 Oak Forest, 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 Oak Forest 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 Oak Forest 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	Oak Forest	Illinois	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Oak Forest were on the road by 7:18 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:27 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Oak Forest 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 Oak Forest has moved 11 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Oak Forest in the whole series.

How does Oak Forest's commute time compare?

Metric	Oak Forest	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	29.0 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.5%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	5.3%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Oak Forest is 29.0 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

5.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Oak Forest, Illinois.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 241 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,486 at a typical national wage. That's 23% more than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Oak Forest, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Oak Forest, 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.