Clare County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 2:13 PM

How much time do drivers in Clare County spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:13 PM

Commute Time Burden in Clare County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clare County spend about 48 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 199 hours, about 8.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% more time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.6 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clare County would save about 80 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,469 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)
Clare County	23.9 min	47.8 min	199 hrs/yr	$6,173	824
Michigan	21.3 min	42.6 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,509	1,585
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: Michigan Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Michigan

Luce County (11.4 min)
Dickinson County (12.2 min)
Schoolcraft County (12.5 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Michigan

Lapeer County (31.3 min)
Lake County (31.1 min)
Livingston County (28.6 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Clare County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 23.9 minutes to get to work in Clare County. That's 7% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 89% of counties in Michigan

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 10.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clare County

Public transit is unusually rare in Clare County: 3.1 times less than the Michigan average (0.3% vs 0.9%).

Commute Mode Trends in Clare County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clare 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	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.7%	3.9%	2.7%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	91.2%	4.0%	2.9%	0.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	91.3%	4.2%	2.4%	0.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	91.6%	3.8%	2.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	90.8%	4.4%	2.4%	0.6%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	90.0%	4.2%	2.6%	1.2%	0.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	89.6%	4.6%	2.8%	1.1%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	88.4%	6.1%	2.6%	1.0%	0.6%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	88.9%	5.9%	2.5%	0.9%	0.7%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	89.5%	5.5%	2.6%	0.9%	0.3%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	88.6%	6.9%	2.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.3%	7.9%	2.5%	0.7%	0.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	87.3%	7.8%	2.5%	0.7%	0.3%	1.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	86.2%	8.6%	2.4%	1.0%	0.3%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	85.0%	10.1%	2.8%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2024	84.1%	10.9%	2.5%	1.3%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 91.7% in 2009 to 84.1% in 2024, down 7.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Clare County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 10.9% in 2024, up 7.0 percentage points.

Public transit peaked at 1.3% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 0.3%.

Commute Start Times in Clare County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clare County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		8.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.9%

Clare County Michigan Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Clare County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 13.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.1% across Michigan. Early starts are more common than in Michigan: 19.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Michigan's: 43.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.5%) 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 Clare 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 Clare 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 Clare County next to Michigan 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	Clare County	Michigan	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:37 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:38 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:39 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:41 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:36 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:33 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clare County were on the road by 7:33 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:41 AM). Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Clare County now leave 5 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 Clare County has moved 11 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Clare County in the whole series.

How does Clare County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clare County	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.9 min	21.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.9%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.5%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clare County is 23.9 minutes, longer than the 21.3 minutes in Michigan.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Michigan. 2.5% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Clare County, MI Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Clare County, MI is the 2nd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 31,218 residents against a local median of 23,737. Where Clare County, MI breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 41% above the local median of 7.8% at 10.9%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 23.9 min against a local median of 20.8 min, 15% above it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 15% above the local median it puts Clare County, MI at the weaker end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 6.0% on work from home, so Clare County, MI sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Clare County, MI has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Clare County, MI	31,218	23.9 min #5/6	10.9% #2/6	7:33 AM #4/6
Isabella County, MI	64,565	15.5 min	7.8%	7:53 AM
Roscommon County, MI	23,737	20.8 min	11.2%	7:39 AM
Missaukee County, MI	15,207	20.5 min	5.2%	7:31 AM
Gladwin County, MI	25,693	23.9 min	9.9%	7:30 AM
Osceola County, MI	23,226	22.1 min	6.2%	7:21 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Clare County, Michigan.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Clare County, Michigan?

Commuters here spend an estimated 199 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,173 at a typical national wage. That's 12% more than the typical Michigan commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Clare County, Michigan?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Clare County, Michigan. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Clare County, Michigan?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.3% of commuters use it versus 0.9% in Michigan, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in Michigan have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Michigan, the shortest average commutes are in Luce County (11.4 min), Dickinson County (12.2 min), Schoolcraft County (12.5 min). The longest are in Lapeer County (31.3 min), Lake County (31.1 min), Livingston County (28.6 min).