Independence Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Independence, Kentucky: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:00 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Independence?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:00 PM

Commute Time Burden in Independence: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Independence spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 194 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% more time on the road than the Kentucky average of 20.8 minutes each way, a difference of 2.5 minutes.

Independence holds about 0.6% of Kentucky's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Independence would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,411 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)
Independence	23.3 min	46.7 min	194 hrs/yr	$6,027	1,233
Kentucky	20.8 min	41.6 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,369	832
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.

Independence Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.3 minutes to get to work in Independence. That's 4% longer 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 15.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Independence

Walking is unusually rare in Independence: 7.2 times less than the Kentucky average (0.3% vs 2.0%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Independence: 4.4 times more than the Kentucky average (0.6% vs 0.1%).

Biking is essentially absent in Independence, versus 0.2% in Kentucky.

Few people walk or bike to work in Independence: just 0.3%, 7.9 times below the Kentucky average of 2.2%.

Commute Mode Trends in Independence, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Independence 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	Taxi	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	95.9%	2.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	95.4%	2.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	95.6%	2.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	96.5%	1.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	96.7%	2.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	95.7%	3.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	96.5%	2.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	95.7%	2.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	94.9%	2.7%	1.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	94.2%	3.0%	1.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	94.5%	2.7%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	92.7%	4.8%	1.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	89.6%	8.4%	1.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	87.7%	10.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	84.3%	14.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	82.6%	15.2%	1.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 96.7%. Overall it fell from 95.9% in 2009 to 82.6% in 2024, down 13.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Independence: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 15.2% in 2024, up 13.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 12.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 0.9% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Taking a taxi overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 4th most common choice in the 2024 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Independence

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Independence?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		2.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.7%

Independence Kentucky Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Independence is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Kentucky. Early starts are less common than in Kentucky: 11.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Kentucky's: 46.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.0%) 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 Independence, 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 Independence 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 Independence next to Kentucky 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	Independence	Kentucky	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:40 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:36 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Independence were on the road by 7:36 AM, 13 minutes later than in 2009 (7:23 AM). That goes against the trend across Kentucky, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Independence now leave 2 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 Independence has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Independence's commute time compare?

Metric	Independence	Kentucky	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.3 min	20.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.2%	10.2%	15.0%
Walked	0.3%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Independence is 23.3 minutes, longer than the 20.8 minutes in Kentucky.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Kentucky. 0.3% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Kentucky.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Independence, KY Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Independence, KY compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Independence, KY	26,000	23.3 min #2/2	15.2% #2/2	7:36 AM #1/2
Erlanger, KY	23,548	18.4 min	16.3%	7:47 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Independence, Kentucky.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Independence, Kentucky?

Commuters here spend an estimated 194 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,027 at a typical national wage. That's 12% more than the typical Kentucky commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Independence, Kentucky?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Independence, Kentucky. 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.

How much time do residents in Independence, Kentucky save by working from home?

About 15.2% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Independence would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,411 at the same national wage assumption used above.