Pekin Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Pekin, 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, 12:29 PM

How much time do drivers in Pekin spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 12:29 PM

Commute Time Burden in Pekin: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Pekin spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 173 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Pekin 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 Pekin would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,151 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)
Pekin	20.8 min	41.6 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,378	1,666
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.

Pekin Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.8 minutes to get to work in Pekin. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Pekin

Driving is 23% more common in Pekin than the Illinois average (90.4% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Pekin: 10.0 times less than the Illinois average (0.6% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Pekin: 11.8 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Pekin, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Pekin 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	93.4%	2.0%	3.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2010	93.5%	2.7%	2.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%
2011	93.4%	2.5%	2.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	95.0%	1.9%	1.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2013	95.3%	1.9%	1.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	95.5%	2.0%	1.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	94.6%	1.8%	1.4%	0.8%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	94.4%	1.9%	1.3%	0.6%	0.9%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%
2017	94.3%	2.3%	1.1%	0.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.8%	0.0%
2018	92.7%	2.7%	1.1%	1.1%	1.1%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
2019	91.3%	2.3%	1.7%	2.2%	0.9%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2020	91.9%	3.2%	1.1%	1.5%	0.1%	1.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	90.2%	5.8%	1.3%	1.3%	0.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	89.5%	5.9%	1.7%	1.8%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.4%	7.1%	1.3%	1.3%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	90.4%	7.2%	1.2%	0.6%	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 was highest in 2014 at 95.5% and lowest in 2023 at 89.4%. Overall it fell from 93.4% in 2009 to 90.4% in 2024, down 3.0 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Pekin: its share of workers rose from 2.0% in 2009 to 7.2% in 2024, up 5.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.1% to 1.2% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2012 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 2.2% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 0.6%.

Commute Start Times in Pekin

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Pekin?

The bars show when commuters in Pekin 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		5.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		9.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		9.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		12.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Pekin is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 12.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 9.4% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 18.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 41.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.7%) 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 Pekin, 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 Pekin 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 Pekin 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	Pekin	Illinois	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:28 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Pekin were on the road by 7:27 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:37 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Pekin now leave 11 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 Pekin has moved 7 minutes later.

How does Pekin's commute time compare?

Metric	Pekin	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.8 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	04:00 PM – 11:59 PM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.2%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Pekin is 20.8 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Pekin, Illinois.

Is living in Pekin, Illinois good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 173 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,378 at a typical national wage. That's 12% less than the typical Illinois commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Pekin, Illinois?

Traffic peaks between 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM in Pekin, Illinois. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Pekin, Illinois?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.6% of commuters use it versus 5.8% in Illinois, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.