Washington County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Washington County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Washington County spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 186 hours, about 7.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.3 minutes.

Washington 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 Washington County would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,309 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)
Washington County	22.3 min	44.7 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,772	894
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 22.3 minutes to get to work in Washington County. That's about the same as 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 7.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Washington County

• Car: 89.2% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 7.4%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 1.1%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Driving is 21% more common in Washington County than the Illinois average (89.2% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Washington County: 35.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.2% vs 5.8%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Washington County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.0%	5.6%	2.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	90.5%	5.2%	2.5%	0.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	89.9%	5.7%	2.8%	0.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	91.2%	4.9%	2.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	90.5%	5.2%	3.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	89.7%	4.7%	4.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	90.8%	4.3%	4.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	92.1%	4.2%	2.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	92.6%	3.4%	2.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.3%	3.6%	2.5%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.4%	3.9%	2.5%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	92.9%	4.1%	1.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.1%	5.2%	1.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.5%	6.3%	1.5%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.6%	6.6%	2.4%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.2%	7.4%	2.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	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 2020 at 92.9%. Overall it fell from 91.0% in 2009 to 89.2% in 2024, down 1.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Washington County: its share of workers rose from 5.6% in 2009 to 7.4% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.2% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 2.0%.

Commute Start Times in Washington County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Washington County?

The bars show when commuters in Washington 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 Washington County6.6% Illinois5.6%	6.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Washington County6.3% Illinois4.3%	6.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Washington County6.5% Illinois4.9%	6.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Washington County10.1% Illinois9.0%	10.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Washington County10.9% Illinois9.4%	10.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Washington County15.0% Illinois14.3%	15.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Washington County12.6% Illinois11.6%	12.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Washington County8.8% Illinois11.2%	8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Washington County1.8% Illinois5.2%	1.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Washington County3.5% Illinois6.1%	3.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Washington County2.1% Illinois2.9%	2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Washington County0.0% Illinois1.5%	0.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Washington County8.9% Illinois7.7%	8.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Washington County6.8% Illinois6.3%	6.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Washington County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 47.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.3%) 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington 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.

• Washington County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Washington County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Washington County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:15 AM). The shift is sharper than across Illinois, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Washington County now leave 19 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 Washington County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Washington County's commute time compare?

Metric	Washington County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.3 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	7.4%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Washington County is 22.3 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau