Commuting in Cowley County, Kansas: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.
You9/24/26, 8:00 PM
How many minutes is the average drive to work in Cowley County?
Map AI9/24/26, 8:00 PM
Commute Time Burden in Cowley County: Annual Hours and Cost
Commuters in Cowley County spend about 30 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 125 hours, about 5.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 13% less time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 2.2 minutes.
Cowley County holds about 1.2% of Kansas's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.
Working from home just 2 days a week in Cowley County would save about 50 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,554 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)
Cowley County
15.0 min
30.1 min
125 hrs/yr
$3,885
424
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.
On average, it takes
15.0
minutes to get to work in
Cowley County.
That's 33% shorter 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 4.9% work from home.
How People Get to Work in Cowley County
Car:
91.7%
Worked at Home:
4.9%
Other:
1.7%
Walked:
1.3%
Bicycle:
0.2%
Motorcycle:
0.1%
Public Transportation:
0.1%unusually low
Taxi:
< 0.1%unusually low
Public transit is unusually rare in Cowley County: 3.9 times less than the Kansas average (0.1% vs 0.4%).
Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Cowley County, versus 0.2% in Kansas.
Commute Mode Trends in Cowley County, 2009-2024
This chart shows how workers in Cowley 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.
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
Other
Walked
Bicycle
Public Transportation
Motorcycle
Taxi
2009
93.6%
2.5%
0.3%
2.8%
0.1%
0.4%
0.2%
0.0%
2010
93.6%
2.8%
0.4%
2.3%
0.2%
0.4%
0.4%
0.0%
2011
92.8%
3.2%
0.8%
2.4%
0.1%
0.2%
0.6%
0.0%
2012
92.8%
3.2%
0.7%
2.5%
0.1%
0.1%
0.5%
0.0%
2013
92.7%
3.6%
1.2%
2.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.4%
0.0%
2014
91.7%
4.3%
1.6%
2.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.4%
0.0%
2015
91.4%
4.3%
1.3%
2.4%
0.2%
0.0%
0.4%
0.0%
2016
92.4%
3.7%
1.0%
2.3%
0.4%
0.0%
0.3%
0.0%
2017
92.9%
3.5%
1.0%
2.1%
0.3%
0.0%
0.1%
0.0%
2018
92.6%
3.1%
0.7%
2.8%
0.4%
0.1%
0.2%
0.0%
2019
93.1%
2.3%
0.4%
3.4%
0.5%
0.1%
0.2%
0.0%
2020
92.2%
3.3%
1.5%
2.4%
0.3%
0.1%
0.2%
0.0%
2021
92.3%
3.5%
1.4%
2.1%
0.3%
0.2%
0.2%
0.0%
2022
91.2%
4.2%
1.7%
2.2%
0.4%
0.2%
0.1%
0.0%
2023
91.3%
4.8%
1.7%
1.7%
0.3%
0.1%
0.1%
0.0%
2024
91.7%
4.9%
1.7%
1.3%
0.2%
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 bottomed out in 2022 at 91.2%. Overall it fell from 93.6% in 2009 to 91.7% in 2024, down 1.9 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.
Working from home gained the most ground in Cowley County: its share of workers rose from 2.5% in 2009 to 4.9% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.
Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.8% to 1.3% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).
Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.
Commute Start Times in Cowley County
What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cowley County?
The bars show when commuters in Cowley 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 AMCowley County6.1%Kansas4.7%
6.1%
5:00-5:29 AM
5:00-5:29 AMCowley County6.4%Kansas3.5%
6.4%
5:30-5:59 AM
5:30-5:59 AMCowley County6.0%Kansas5.2%
6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM
6:00-6:29 AMCowley County10.2%Kansas7.6%
10.2%
6:30-6:59 AM
6:30-6:59 AMCowley County11.3%Kansas10.3%
11.3%
7:00-7:29 AM
7:00-7:29 AMCowley County15.1%Kansas14.9%
15.1%
7:30-7:59 AM
7:30-7:59 AMCowley County12.7%Kansas16.8%
12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM
8:00-8:29 AMCowley County9.0%Kansas10.4%
9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM
8:30-8:59 AMCowley County3.2%Kansas4.5%
3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM
9:00-9:59 AMCowley County3.3%Kansas5.0%
3.3%
10:00-10:59 AM
10:00-10:59 AMCowley County1.7%Kansas2.5%
1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM
11:00-11:59 AMCowley County0.6%Kansas1.1%
0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM
12:00-3:59 PMCowley County7.6%Kansas7.0%
7.6%
4:00-11:59 PM
4:00-11:59 PMCowley County6.9%Kansas6.6%
6.9%
Cowley CountyKansasSource: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates
The busiest time to head out in Cowley County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.9% across Kansas. Early starts are more common than in Kansas: 18.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Kansas: 48.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.0%) 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 Cowley 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 Cowley 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 Cowley 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.
Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.Show typical departure times by year
Year
Cowley County
Kansas
United States
2009
7:31 AM
7:39 AM
7:37 AM
2010
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2011
7:34 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2012
7:34 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2013
7:35 AM
7:38 AM
7:39 AM
2014
7:39 AM
7:38 AM
7:39 AM
2015
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2016
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2017
7:35 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2018
7:32 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2019
7:27 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2020
7:28 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2021
7:28 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2022
7:29 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2023
7:24 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2024
7:20 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
In 2024, half of commuters in Cowley County were on the road by 7:20 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kansas, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Cowley County now leave 18 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 Cowley County has moved 7 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Cowley County in the whole series.
How does Cowley County's commute time compare?
Metric
Cowley County
Kansas
US Average
Avg. Commute Time
15.0 min
17.2 min
22.4 min
Departure Window
07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home
4.9%
11.8%
15.0%
Walked
1.3%
2.3%
2.4%
Public Transit
0.1%
0.4%
3.2%
The average commute time in Cowley County is 15.0 minutes, shorter than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.
0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Kansas. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in Kansas.
Cowley County, KS Commute Compared With Nearby Counties
Cowley County, KS is the 3rd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 34,411 residents against a local median of 22,353. The measure that sets Cowley County, KS apart most is one-way commute: 15.0 min, 31% below the local median of 21.8 min. That is the better end of the local range on this measure.
Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 4.9% against a local median of 7.1%, 31% below it. The counties themselves spread 10.6 min on one-way commute, so Cowley County, KS sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Cowley County, KS has the 2nd lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.
Common questions about commuting in Cowley County, Kansas.
Is living in Cowley County, Kansas good for avoiding long commute costs?
Commuters here spend an estimated 125 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,885 at a typical national wage. That's 13% less than the typical Kansas commuter spends.
When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Cowley County, Kansas?
Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Cowley County, Kansas. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.
Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Cowley County, Kansas?
Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.1% of commuters use it versus 0.4% in Kansas, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.
How do commute times compare across counties in Kansas?
Among counties in Kansas, the shortest average commutes are in Wichita County (7.0 min), Scott County (7.1 min), Greeley County (7.2 min). The longest are in Linn County (31.3 min), Miami County (30.8 min), Jefferson County (30.3 min).