Clay County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Clay County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clay County spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 150 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% more time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 0.8 minutes.

Clay County holds about 0.3% of Kansas's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clay County would save about 60 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,859 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	18.0 min	36.0 min	150 hrs/yr	$4,646	327
Kansas	17.2 min	34.4 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,448	662
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: Kansas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.0 minutes to get to work in Clay County. That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 80% of counties in Kansas

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clay County

• Car: 88.5%
• Worked at Home: 8.2%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 1.3%
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Clay County: 4.6 times less than the Kansas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Clay County: 4.8 times less than the Kansas average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Clay County, versus 0.2% in Kansas.

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
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	88.2%	7.7%	3.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	87.4%	8.1%	3.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	88.4%	5.9%	3.3%	1.8%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	89.0%	6.9%	2.0%	1.5%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	89.3%	6.8%	2.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	88.6%	7.1%	2.8%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	89.0%	6.5%	2.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	88.6%	7.7%	2.4%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	90.4%	6.4%	2.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	91.2%	5.7%	2.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	93.3%	4.3%	1.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	93.2%	5.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	93.0%	6.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	90.0%	7.2%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	89.1%	7.6%	1.6%	1.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	88.5%	8.2%	1.6%	1.3%	0.3%	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 was highest in 2019 at 93.3% and lowest in 2010 at 87.4%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 88.2% in 2009 and 88.5% in 2024. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.2% to 1.6% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

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 Kansas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Clay County2.2% Kansas4.7%	2.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Clay County4.0% Kansas3.5%	4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Clay County6.9% Kansas5.2%	6.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Clay County10.1% Kansas7.6%	10.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Clay County12.2% Kansas10.3%	12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Clay County19.5% Kansas14.9%	19.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Clay County20.8% Kansas16.8%	20.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Clay County10.5% Kansas10.4%	10.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Clay County3.1% Kansas4.5%	3.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Clay County1.7% Kansas5.0%	1.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Clay County1.7% Kansas2.5%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Clay County0.0% Kansas1.1%	0.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Clay County3.8% Kansas7.0%	3.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Clay County3.4% Kansas6.6%	3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Clay County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 20.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Kansas. Early starts are about as common as in Kansas: 13.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kansas: 63.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 9 commuters (10.7%) 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 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 Kansas 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
• Kansas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clay County	Kansas	United States
2009	7:24 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:36 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clay County were on the road by 7:23 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:24 AM). Kansas followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Clay County now leave 15 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 13 minutes earlier.

How does Clay County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clay County	Kansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.0 min	17.2 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.2%	11.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clay County is 18.0 minutes, longer than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Kansas. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in Kansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau