Decatur County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Decatur County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Decatur County spend about 22 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 90 hours, about 3.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 37% less time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 6.4 minutes.

Decatur County holds about 0.1% of Kansas's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Decatur County would save about 36 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,115 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)
Decatur County	10.8 min	21.6 min	90 hrs/yr	$2,787	81
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 10.8 minutes to get to work in Decatur County. That's 52% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Kansas

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 15.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Decatur County

• Car: 77.3%
• Worked at Home: 15.3%
• Walked: 3.8%
• Public Transportation: 3.6% unusually high
• Other: < 0.1%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Decatur County: 62657868.0 times less than the Kansas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually common in Decatur County: 9.3 times more than the Kansas average (3.6% vs 0.4%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Decatur County: 200501658.2 times less than the Kansas average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Decatur County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Decatur 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
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Other

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Other
2009	86.9%	5.4%	5.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	1.3%	0.0%
2010	83.7%	7.6%	7.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.9%	0.0%
2011	86.3%	7.2%	4.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%
2012	82.0%	8.7%	7.4%	0.0%	0.0%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%
2013	82.3%	10.6%	5.5%	0.0%	0.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	85.9%	8.4%	5.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	88.0%	6.2%	5.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	85.2%	8.8%	5.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	88.1%	7.4%	2.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.7%
2018	85.5%	11.0%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.8%
2019	78.4%	16.5%	3.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.9%
2020	77.5%	16.2%	4.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.3%
2021	78.3%	15.1%	4.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	2.1%
2022	71.4%	18.7%	5.8%	4.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	69.8%	21.2%	5.5%	3.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	77.3%	15.3%	3.8%	3.6%	0.0%	0.0%	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 2017 at 88.1% and lowest in 2023 at 69.8%. Overall it fell from 86.9% in 2009 to 77.3% in 2024, down 9.6 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Decatur County: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 15.3% in 2024, up 9.9 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.7% to 3.8% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 21.2% in 2023 and has since fallen back to 15.3%.

Commute Start Times in Decatur County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Decatur County?

The bars show when commuters in Decatur 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 Decatur County3.6% Kansas4.7%	3.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Decatur County3.0% Kansas3.5%	3.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Decatur County5.2% Kansas5.2%	5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Decatur County5.7% Kansas7.6%	5.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Decatur County6.4% Kansas10.3%	6.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Decatur County16.5% Kansas14.9%	16.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Decatur County28.1% Kansas16.8%	28.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Decatur County17.1% Kansas10.4%	17.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Decatur County1.8% Kansas4.5%	1.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Decatur County4.3% Kansas5.0%	4.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Decatur County2.0% Kansas2.5%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Decatur County1.6% Kansas1.1%	1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Decatur County1.4% Kansas7.0%	1.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Decatur County3.4% Kansas6.6%	3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Decatur County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 28.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Kansas. Early starts are less common than in Kansas: 11.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kansas: 68.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (12.6%) 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 Decatur 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 Decatur 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 Decatur 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.

• Decatur County
• Kansas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Decatur County	Kansas	United States
2009	7:56 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:02 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:50 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:45 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Decatur County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 16 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:56 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kansas, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Decatur County now leave 2 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Decatur County's commute time compare?

Metric	Decatur County	Kansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	10.8 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.3%	11.8%	15.0%
Walked	3.8%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.6%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Decatur County is 10.8 minutes, shorter than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.

3.6% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.4% in Kansas. 3.8% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Kansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau