Oswego Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Oswego: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Oswego spend about 57 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 236 hours, about 9.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 4.7 minutes.

Oswego 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 Oswego would save about 95 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,931 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)
Oswego	28.4 min	56.7 min	236 hrs/yr	$7,326	3,480
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.

Oswego Commute Map

On average, it takes 28.4 minutes to get to work in Oswego. That's 27% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 16.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Oswego

• Car: 81.4%
• Worked at Home: 16.5%
• Other: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.7% unusually low
• Walked: 0.5% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Oswego: 8.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.7% vs 5.8%).

Walking is unusually rare in Oswego: 6.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.5% vs 2.8%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Oswego: 67242476.7 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Oswego: just 0.5%, 7.3 times below the Illinois average of 3.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Oswego, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Oswego 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
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Public Transportation	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	90.9%	3.5%	0.3%	4.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	90.9%	3.9%	0.3%	3.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2011	90.8%	4.3%	0.2%	3.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	91.0%	4.7%	0.4%	3.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	90.2%	5.1%	0.3%	3.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	90.7%	5.0%	0.2%	3.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	91.0%	4.4%	0.1%	4.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	89.7%	5.4%	0.2%	4.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	88.4%	5.8%	0.2%	4.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	88.3%	6.0%	0.3%	4.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	87.3%	7.1%	0.5%	4.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	88.1%	7.1%	0.3%	2.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.9%	10.1%	0.6%	1.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	85.8%	11.8%	0.8%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	83.7%	14.5%	0.9%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	81.4%	16.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 90.9% in 2009 to 81.4% in 2024, down 9.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Oswego: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 16.5% in 2024, up 13.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.5% to 0.7% of workers (down 3.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Oswego

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Oswego?

The bars show when commuters in Oswego 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 Oswego5.0% Illinois5.6%	5.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Oswego6.6% Illinois4.3%	6.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Oswego4.3% Illinois4.9%	4.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Oswego11.7% Illinois9.0%	11.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Oswego12.7% Illinois9.4%	12.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Oswego14.1% Illinois14.3%	14.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Oswego8.9% Illinois11.6%	8.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Oswego12.5% Illinois11.2%	12.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Oswego3.1% Illinois5.2%	3.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Oswego6.7% Illinois6.1%	6.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Oswego1.7% Illinois2.9%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Oswego0.2% Illinois1.5%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Oswego7.0% Illinois7.7%	7.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Oswego5.5% Illinois6.3%	5.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Oswego is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 15.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 48.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.1%) 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 Oswego, 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 Oswego 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 Oswego 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.

• Oswego
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Oswego	Illinois	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:24 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Oswego were on the road by 7:21 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Illinois, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Oswego now leave 17 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Oswego's commute time compare?

Metric	Oswego	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.4 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	16.5%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Oswego is 28.4 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau