Bloomington Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Bloomington, Indiana: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 3:58 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Bloomington?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:58 PM

Commute Time Burden in Bloomington: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Bloomington spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 128 hours, about 5.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% less time on the road than the Indiana average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 5.8 minutes.

Bloomington holds about 1.0% of Indiana's population but accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Bloomington would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,581 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)
Bloomington	15.3 min	30.6 min	128 hrs/yr	$3,953	2,950
Indiana	21.1 min	42.2 min	176 hrs/yr	$5,455	1,308
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.

Bloomington Commute Map

On average, it takes 15.3 minutes to get to work in Bloomington. That's 32% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM, followed by 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 18.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Bloomington

Driving is 25% less common in Bloomington than the Indiana average (64.2% vs 85.4%).

Walking is unusually common in Bloomington: 6.1 times more than the Indiana average (11.8% vs 1.9%).

Public transit is unusually common in Bloomington: 4.6 times more than the Indiana average (2.9% vs 0.6%).

Biking is unusually common in Bloomington: 4.7 times more than the Indiana average (1.8% vs 0.4%).

Bloomington stands out for active commuting: 13.6% of workers walk or bike to work, 5.9 times the Indiana average of 2.3%.

Commute Mode Trends in Bloomington, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Bloomington 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	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	74.7%	4.8%	12.2%	4.5%	3.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	74.2%	4.9%	12.5%	5.2%	2.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	71.0%	4.7%	14.6%	5.8%	3.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	68.2%	5.1%	16.0%	6.3%	3.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	67.9%	4.8%	15.3%	6.9%	4.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	67.5%	4.3%	16.0%	6.6%	5.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	68.0%	4.3%	15.8%	6.6%	4.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	70.5%	4.0%	14.8%	5.9%	4.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	71.3%	4.3%	13.8%	6.0%	3.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	71.3%	4.7%	14.4%	5.6%	3.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	71.1%	4.9%	14.6%	5.9%	2.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	69.8%	10.0%	12.6%	4.4%	2.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	66.2%	14.6%	12.3%	3.8%	2.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	64.6%	16.6%	12.1%	3.7%	2.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	64.4%	17.2%	12.1%	3.2%	2.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	64.2%	18.2%	11.8%	2.9%	1.8%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 74.7% in 2009 to 64.2% in 2024, down 10.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Bloomington: its share of workers rose from 4.8% in 2009 to 18.2% in 2024, up 13.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.5% to 2.9% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 16.0% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 11.8%.

Commute Start Times in Bloomington

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Bloomington?

The bars show when commuters in Bloomington 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 Indiana for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		2.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		3.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		6.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		10.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		10.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		8.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		3.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		12.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		12.0%

Bloomington Indiana Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Bloomington is 12:00-3:59 PM, when 12.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 7.5% across Indiana. Early starts are less common than in Indiana: 6.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Indiana: 32.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.7% there. About 1 in 2 commuters (46.8%) 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 Bloomington, 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 Bloomington 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 Bloomington next to Indiana 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	Bloomington	Indiana	United States
2009	8:46 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:46 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:52 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:52 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:52 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:50 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:49 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:49 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:52 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:53 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:56 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:49 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:48 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:49 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:48 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:51 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Bloomington were on the road by 8:51 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (8:46 AM). Across Indiana, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Bloomington now leave 73 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Bloomington has moved 5 minutes earlier.

How does Bloomington's commute time compare?

Metric	Bloomington	Indiana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.3 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	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	18.2%	10.7%	15.0%
Walked	11.8%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.9%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Bloomington is 15.3 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Indiana.

2.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.6% in Indiana. 11.8% commute by walking, higher than the 1.9% in Indiana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Bloomington, Indiana.

Is living in Bloomington, Indiana good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 128 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,953 at a typical national wage. That's 28% less than the typical Indiana commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Bloomington, Indiana?

Traffic peaks between 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM in Bloomington, Indiana. 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 Bloomington, Indiana?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 2.9% of commuters use it versus 0.6% in Indiana, making it a realistic option for many workers.

How much time do residents in Bloomington, Indiana save by working from home?

About 18.2% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Bloomington would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,581 at the same national wage assumption used above.