Cooper County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Cooper County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cooper County spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 189 hours, about 7.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% more time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.7 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cooper County would save about 75 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,338 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)
Cooper County	22.6 min	45.3 min	189 hrs/yr	$5,845	448
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

N

On average, it takes 22.6 minutes to get to work in Cooper County. That's 1% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 6.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Cooper County

• Car: 89.6%
• Worked at Home: 6.4%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 0.9%
• Taxi: 0.8% unusually high
• Public Transportation: 0.4%
• Motorcycle: 0.3%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Cooper County: 4.7 times more than the Missouri average (0.8% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Cooper County: 213977242.4 times less than the Missouri average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Cooper County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	91.0%	3.9%	2.7%	0.5%	0.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2010	91.8%	3.2%	3.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	93.9%	3.3%	1.4%	0.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	92.9%	3.4%	2.2%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	92.9%	3.5%	2.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	92.4%	3.4%	2.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	93.2%	3.5%	2.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	93.5%	3.3%	2.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	93.0%	3.7%	2.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	91.2%	4.7%	2.0%	1.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	90.6%	5.4%	1.4%	1.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	91.0%	5.1%	1.2%	2.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	90.4%	5.8%	1.2%	1.8%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	91.2%	5.3%	1.0%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%
2023	90.9%	5.9%	1.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	89.6%	6.4%	1.6%	0.9%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 93.9%. Overall it fell from 91.0% in 2009 to 89.6% in 2024, down 1.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cooper County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 6.4% in 2024, up 2.5 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.7% to 1.6% of workers (down 1.1 percentage points).

Taking a taxi overtook biking to become the 5th most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Cooper County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cooper County?

The bars show when commuters in Cooper 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 Cooper County4.9% Missouri5.2%	4.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Cooper County4.8% Missouri3.9%	4.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Cooper County5.2% Missouri5.3%	5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Cooper County10.9% Missouri9.0%	10.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Cooper County15.1% Missouri10.4%	15.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Cooper County19.0% Missouri15.0%	19.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Cooper County12.4% Missouri13.6%	12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Cooper County6.8% Missouri10.1%	6.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Cooper County3.5% Missouri4.5%	3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Cooper County3.5% Missouri5.2%	3.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Cooper County1.3% Missouri2.6%	1.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Cooper County0.8% Missouri1.2%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Cooper County6.2% Missouri7.0%	6.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Cooper County5.7% Missouri6.9%	5.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Cooper County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are about as common as in Missouri: 14.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Missouri: 53.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.5%) 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 Cooper 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 Cooper 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 Cooper 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.

• Cooper County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Cooper County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:17 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:16 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:14 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:14 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cooper County were on the road by 7:15 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Cooper County now leave 23 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Cooper County's commute time compare?

Metric	Cooper County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.6 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	6.4%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Cooper County is 22.6 minutes, longer than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau