Commuting in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.
You9/24/26, 8:29 PM
How many minutes is the average drive to work in Cape Girardeau County?
Map AI9/24/26, 8:29 PM
Commute Time Burden in Cape Girardeau County: Annual Hours and Cost
Commuters in Cape Girardeau County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 141 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 19% less time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.0 minutes.
Cape Girardeau County holds about 1.3% of Missouri's population but accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.
Working from home just 2 days a week in Cape Girardeau County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,753 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)
Cape Girardeau County
17.0 min
33.9 min
141 hrs/yr
$4,383
1,374
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.
On average, it takes
17.0
minutes to get to work in
Cape Girardeau County.
That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.
Faster than 74% of counties in Missouri
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 9.0% work from home.
How People Get to Work in Cape Girardeau County
Car:
88.1%
Worked at Home:
9.0%
Walked:
1.7%
Other:
0.4%
Taxi:
0.3%
Public Transportation:
0.2%unusually low
Bicycle:
0.2%
Motorcycle:
0.1%
Public transit is unusually rare in Cape Girardeau County: 3.5 times less than the Missouri average (0.2% vs 0.8%).
Commute Mode Trends in Cape Girardeau County, 2009-2024
This chart shows how workers in Cape Girardeau 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
Taxi
Public Transportation
Bicycle
Motorcycle
2009
93.2%
3.0%
3.0%
0.3%
0.0%
0.2%
0.1%
0.2%
2010
93.2%
2.9%
3.0%
0.3%
0.0%
0.3%
0.1%
0.2%
2011
92.2%
2.9%
3.4%
0.8%
0.1%
0.3%
0.1%
0.2%
2012
92.7%
2.5%
3.3%
0.7%
0.1%
0.3%
0.1%
0.3%
2013
93.6%
2.2%
2.5%
0.9%
0.1%
0.4%
0.1%
0.3%
2014
93.9%
1.9%
2.4%
0.9%
0.1%
0.4%
0.1%
0.3%
2015
92.6%
2.2%
3.1%
0.9%
0.2%
0.4%
0.2%
0.4%
2016
93.3%
2.4%
2.7%
0.5%
0.1%
0.5%
0.2%
0.3%
2017
92.7%
3.1%
2.5%
0.7%
0.1%
0.4%
0.2%
0.3%
2018
92.5%
3.2%
2.8%
0.4%
0.1%
0.6%
0.2%
0.2%
2019
92.2%
3.4%
2.6%
0.8%
0.2%
0.4%
0.2%
0.2%
2020
92.2%
4.7%
1.6%
0.6%
0.4%
0.3%
0.1%
0.2%
2021
90.7%
6.3%
1.3%
0.6%
0.5%
0.3%
0.1%
0.1%
2022
90.4%
6.5%
1.6%
0.5%
0.4%
0.3%
0.1%
0.2%
2023
89.2%
8.0%
1.5%
0.5%
0.4%
0.2%
0.1%
0.2%
2024
88.1%
9.0%
1.7%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
0.2%
0.1%
Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2014 at 93.9%. Overall it fell from 93.2% in 2009 to 88.1% in 2024, down 5.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.
Working from home gained the most ground in Cape Girardeau County: its share of workers rose from 3.0% in 2009 to 9.0% in 2024, up 6.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.
Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.0% to 1.7% of workers (down 1.3 percentage points).
Commute Start Times in Cape Girardeau County
What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cape Girardeau County?
The bars show when commuters in Cape Girardeau 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.
Cape Girardeau CountyMissouriSource: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates
The busiest time to head out in Cape Girardeau County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 18.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are less common than in Missouri: 12.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Missouri: 55.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.7%) 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 Cape Girardeau 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 Cape Girardeau 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 Cape Girardeau 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.
Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.Show typical departure times by year
Year
Cape Girardeau County
Missouri
United States
2009
7:39 AM
7:33 AM
7:37 AM
2010
7:37 AM
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
2011
7:36 AM
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
2012
7:36 AM
7:33 AM
7:38 AM
2013
7:35 AM
7:33 AM
7:39 AM
2014
7:32 AM
7:33 AM
7:39 AM
2015
7:33 AM
7:32 AM
7:38 AM
2016
7:32 AM
7:32 AM
7:38 AM
2017
7:29 AM
7:32 AM
7:38 AM
2018
7:32 AM
7:31 AM
7:37 AM
2019
7:32 AM
7:31 AM
7:37 AM
2020
7:28 AM
7:32 AM
7:37 AM
2021
7:29 AM
7:32 AM
7:37 AM
2022
7:28 AM
7:32 AM
7:37 AM
2023
7:27 AM
7:32 AM
7:38 AM
2024
7:30 AM
7:32 AM
7:38 AM
In 2024, half of commuters in Cape Girardeau County were on the road by 7:30 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:39 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Cape Girardeau County now leave 8 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).
How does Cape Girardeau County's commute time compare?
Metric
Cape Girardeau County
Missouri
US Average
Avg. Commute Time
17.0 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
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home
9.0%
13.0%
15.0%
Walked
1.7%
1.8%
2.4%
Public Transit
0.2%
0.8%
3.2%
The average commute time in Cape Girardeau County is 17.0 minutes, shorter than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.
0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.
Cape Girardeau County, MO Commute Compared With Nearby Counties
Cape Girardeau County, MO is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 82,735 residents against a local median of 16,997. Cape Girardeau County, MO's work from home, at 9.0%, runs 60% above the 5.6% typical of the counties around it.
The counties themselves spread 7.1% on work from home, so Cape Girardeau County, MO sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Cape Girardeau County, MO has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.
Common questions about commuting in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri.
Is living in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri good for avoiding long commute costs?
Commuters here spend an estimated 141 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,383 at a typical national wage. That's 19% less than the typical Missouri commuter spends.
When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri?
Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. 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.
Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri?
Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.8% in Missouri, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.
Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among counties in Missouri?
Among counties in Missouri, the shortest average commutes are in Saline County (11.9 min), Adair County (12.0 min), Nodaway County (12.1 min). The longest are in Bollinger County (33.1 min), Ray County (32.2 min), Maries County (31.9 min).