Clay County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Clay County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clay County spend about 55 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 228 hours, about 9.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% more time on the road than the Indiana average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 6.3 minutes.

Clay County holds about 0.4% of Indiana's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clay County would save about 91 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,832 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)
Clay County	27.4 min	54.8 min	228 hrs/yr	$7,079	703
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.

Commute Time Map: Indiana Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 27.4 minutes to get to work in Clay County. That's 22% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 88% of counties in Indiana

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 4.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clay County

• Car: 93.0%
• Worked at Home: 4.8%
• Walked: 1.3%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Clay County, versus 0.1% in Indiana.

Public transit is unusually rare in Clay County: 5.1 times less than the Indiana average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Clay County, versus 0.1% in Indiana.

Biking is unusually rare in Clay County: 5.2 times less than the Indiana average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Clay County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clay 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	95.0%	2.1%	1.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	94.7%	3.0%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2011	94.5%	3.2%	1.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	94.9%	2.8%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	94.2%	3.1%	1.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	93.8%	3.1%	2.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	94.3%	2.6%	2.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2016	94.5%	2.3%	2.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	94.9%	2.2%	1.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	95.2%	2.3%	1.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	95.6%	2.3%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	95.4%	2.6%	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	95.3%	3.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	93.9%	4.1%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2023	93.3%	4.3%	1.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	93.0%	4.8%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	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 2019 at 95.6%. Overall it fell from 95.0% in 2009 to 93.0% in 2024, down 2.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Clay County: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 4.8% in 2024, up 2.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Clay County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clay County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Clay County10.5% Indiana6.7%	10.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Clay County7.8% Indiana4.5%	7.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Clay County6.7% Indiana5.6%	6.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Clay County13.5% Indiana8.5%	13.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Clay County9.5% Indiana9.9%	9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Clay County12.3% Indiana13.8%	12.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Clay County10.4% Indiana12.3%	10.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Clay County7.5% Indiana9.6%	7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Clay County1.3% Indiana4.4%	1.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Clay County4.2% Indiana5.2%	4.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Clay County3.9% Indiana2.5%	3.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Clay County0.2% Indiana1.2%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Clay County4.5% Indiana7.5%	4.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Clay County7.8% Indiana8.0%	7.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Clay County is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 13.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.5% across Indiana. Early starts are more common than in Indiana: 24.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Indiana: 39.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.7% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.6%) 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 Clay 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 Clay 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 Clay County 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.

• Clay County
• Indiana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clay County	Indiana	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:21 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:34 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:35 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:09 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:09 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:05 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:10 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:05 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clay County were on the road by 7:05 AM, 17 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). Across Indiana, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Clay County now leave 33 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 Clay County has moved 7 minutes earlier.

How does Clay County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clay County	Indiana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.4 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.8%	10.7%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clay County is 27.4 minutes, longer than the 21.1 minutes in Indiana.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Indiana. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 1.9% in Indiana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau