Plainfield Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Plainfield: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Plainfield spend about 63 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 262 hours, about 10.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 33% more time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 7.9 minutes.

Plainfield holds about 0.3% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Plainfield would save about 105 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,254 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)
Plainfield	31.5 min	63.0 min	262 hrs/yr	$8,134	3,414
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.

Plainfield Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.5 minutes to get to work in Plainfield. That's 40% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 22.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Plainfield

• Car: 73.9%
• Worked at Home: 22.4%
• Public Transportation: 1.9% unusually low
• Other: 1.1%
• Walked: 0.5% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Plainfield: 3.0 times less than the Illinois average (1.9% vs 5.8%).

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

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Plainfield: 3.4 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Biking is unusually rare in Plainfield: 7.7 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Plainfield: just 0.5%, 6.3 times below the Illinois average of 3.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Plainfield, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Other	Walked	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	89.9%	4.9%	3.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	88.5%	5.4%	3.9%	0.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	88.8%	5.3%	3.5%	1.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	89.0%	5.3%	3.4%	1.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	90.6%	5.0%	2.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	91.0%	4.4%	2.4%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	90.9%	4.8%	2.9%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	90.3%	5.0%	3.2%	0.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	90.1%	5.3%	2.9%	0.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	88.7%	6.5%	3.1%	0.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	87.3%	7.7%	3.1%	0.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	83.3%	12.2%	3.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	80.6%	15.6%	2.4%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	78.1%	17.7%	2.5%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	74.8%	21.2%	1.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	73.9%	22.4%	1.9%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	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 2014 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 89.9% in 2009 to 73.9% in 2024, down 16.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 10 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Plainfield: its share of workers rose from 4.9% in 2009 to 22.4% in 2024, up 17.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 14.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 3.8% to 1.9% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Plainfield

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Plainfield?

The bars show when commuters in Plainfield 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 Plainfield5.8% Illinois5.6%	5.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Plainfield5.1% Illinois4.3%	5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Plainfield4.4% Illinois4.9%	4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Plainfield10.6% Illinois9.0%	10.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Plainfield8.4% Illinois9.4%	8.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Plainfield13.5% Illinois14.3%	13.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Plainfield11.3% Illinois11.6%	11.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Plainfield10.9% Illinois11.2%	10.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Plainfield4.5% Illinois5.2%	4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Plainfield7.4% Illinois6.1%	7.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Plainfield3.8% Illinois2.9%	3.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Plainfield1.2% Illinois1.5%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Plainfield6.8% Illinois7.7%	6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Plainfield6.2% Illinois6.3%	6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Plainfield is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are about as common as in Illinois: 15.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Illinois: 44.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.4%) 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 Plainfield, 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 Plainfield 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 Plainfield 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.

• Plainfield
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Plainfield	Illinois	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:33 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Plainfield were on the road by 7:36 AM, 20 minutes later than in 2009 (7:16 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Plainfield now leave 2 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 Plainfield has moved 13 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Plainfield in the whole series.

How does Plainfield's commute time compare?

Metric	Plainfield	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.5 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	22.4%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.9%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Plainfield is 31.5 minutes, longer than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

1.9% 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