Butler County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Butler County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Butler County spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 129 hours, about 5.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 26% less time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 5.5 minutes.

Butler County holds about 0.7% of Missouri's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Butler County would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,596 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)
Butler County	15.4 min	30.9 min	129 hrs/yr	$3,990	591
Missouri	21.0 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,415	923
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: Missouri Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 15.4 minutes to get to work in Butler County. That's 31% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 90% of counties in Missouri

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 5.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Butler County

• Car: 91.4%
• Worked at Home: 5.4%
• Walked: 1.7%
• Other: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.5%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Butler County, versus 0.2% in Missouri.

Biking is essentially absent in Butler County, versus 0.2% in Missouri.

Commute Mode Trends in Butler County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.0%	5.0%	1.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	93.6%	3.8%	1.1%	0.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	94.5%	3.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	94.7%	2.8%	0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	94.3%	2.7%	0.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	94.9%	2.3%	1.0%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	93.3%	2.4%	1.8%	1.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	92.4%	2.8%	2.3%	1.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	91.3%	3.3%	2.6%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.4%	0.3%
2018	91.8%	3.1%	2.3%	1.0%	1.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.3%
2019	91.0%	3.7%	2.3%	0.8%	1.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2020	92.2%	4.6%	1.4%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2021	93.2%	4.1%	1.2%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	93.0%	4.0%	1.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	91.7%	4.9%	1.6%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	91.4%	5.4%	1.7%	0.9%	0.5%	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 was highest in 2014 at 94.9% and lowest in 2019 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 92.0% in 2009 to 91.4% in 2024, down 0.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Commute Start Times in Butler County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Butler County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Butler County6.5% Missouri5.2%	6.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Butler County6.4% Missouri3.9%	6.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Butler County5.5% Missouri5.3%	5.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Butler County8.2% Missouri9.0%	8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Butler County10.8% Missouri10.4%	10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Butler County13.5% Missouri15.0%	13.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Butler County10.7% Missouri13.6%	10.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Butler County9.0% Missouri10.1%	9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Butler County2.9% Missouri4.5%	2.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Butler County5.3% Missouri5.2%	5.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Butler County3.1% Missouri2.6%	3.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Butler County0.5% Missouri1.2%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Butler County8.0% Missouri7.0%	8.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Butler County9.7% Missouri6.9%	9.7%

Butler County Missouri Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Butler County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 18.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Missouri: 44.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.5%) 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 Butler 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 Butler 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 Butler County next to Missouri 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.

• Butler County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Butler County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:33 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:21 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Butler County were on the road by 7:28 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:37 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Butler County now leave 10 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Butler County's commute time compare?

Metric	Butler County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.4 min	21.0 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.4%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Butler County is 15.4 minutes, shorter than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau