Franklin County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Franklin County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Franklin County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 167 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% more time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Franklin County holds about 0.9% of Kansas's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Franklin County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,072 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)
Franklin County	20.1 min	40.1 min	167 hrs/yr	$5,181	817
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 20.1 minutes to get to work in Franklin County. That's 11% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 87% of counties in Kansas

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Franklin County

• Car: 84.9%
• Worked at Home: 9.9%
• Other: 2.7%
• Walked: 2.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Franklin County: 3.4 times less than the Kansas average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

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

Biking is essentially absent in Franklin County, versus 0.3% in Kansas.

Commute Mode Trends in Franklin County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.6%	4.2%	0.6%	1.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	92.6%	3.5%	0.6%	2.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	92.5%	4.3%	0.7%	1.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	92.2%	4.5%	0.7%	1.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	90.2%	5.1%	1.0%	2.1%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	90.1%	4.3%	1.5%	2.3%	0.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	90.0%	4.3%	1.5%	3.0%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	90.7%	4.3%	1.3%	2.5%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	90.5%	4.3%	1.5%	2.6%	0.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%
2018	92.0%	4.0%	1.3%	2.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2019	93.3%	3.8%	1.0%	1.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	90.6%	5.3%	2.5%	1.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	89.7%	6.5%	2.1%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	87.8%	8.5%	2.2%	1.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	85.9%	9.3%	2.6%	2.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.9%	9.9%	2.7%	2.2%	0.2%	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 93.3%. Overall it fell from 92.6% in 2009 to 84.9% in 2024, down 7.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Franklin County: its share of workers rose from 4.2% in 2009 to 9.9% in 2024, up 5.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Franklin County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Franklin County?

The bars show when commuters in Franklin 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 Franklin County9.8% Kansas4.7%	9.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Franklin County5.3% Kansas3.5%	5.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Franklin County9.3% Kansas5.2%	9.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Franklin County7.8% Kansas7.6%	7.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Franklin County10.8% Kansas10.3%	10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Franklin County15.5% Kansas14.9%	15.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Franklin County10.5% Kansas16.8%	10.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Franklin County6.3% Kansas10.4%	6.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Franklin County3.0% Kansas4.5%	3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Franklin County3.6% Kansas5.0%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Franklin County2.7% Kansas2.5%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Franklin County0.6% Kansas1.1%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Franklin County8.6% Kansas7.0%	8.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Franklin County6.2% Kansas6.6%	6.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Franklin County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.9% across Kansas. Early starts are more common than in Kansas: 24.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Kansas: 43.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.6%) 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 Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin 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.

• Franklin County
• Kansas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Franklin County	Kansas	United States
2009	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:17 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:16 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:16 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:16 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:15 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:12 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:06 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:05 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:04 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:04 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:03 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:05 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:06 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:10 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Franklin County were on the road by 7:14 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:17 AM). Kansas followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Franklin County now leave 24 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 Franklin County has moved 9 minutes later.

How does Franklin County's commute time compare?

Metric	Franklin County	Kansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.9%	11.8%	15.0%
Walked	2.2%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Franklin County is 20.1 minutes, longer than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Kansas. 2.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in Kansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau