Howard County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 8:03 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Howard County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:03 PM

Commute Time Burden in Howard County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Howard County spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 213 hours, about 8.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 22% more time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.6 minutes.

Howard County holds about 0.2% of Missouri's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Howard County would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,643 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)
Howard County	25.6 min	51.1 min	213 hrs/yr	$6,606	441
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Missouri

Saline County (11.9 min)
Adair County (12.0 min)
Nodaway County (12.1 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Missouri

Bollinger County (33.1 min)
Ray County (32.2 min)
Maries County (31.9 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Howard County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 25.6 minutes to get to work in Howard County. That's 14% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 82% of counties in Missouri

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 9.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Howard County

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Howard County, versus 0.1% in Missouri.

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Howard County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Howard 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	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	91.1%	4.5%	3.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	90.6%	5.5%	3.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	90.5%	6.0%	2.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	89.9%	5.6%	3.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.1%
2013	91.6%	4.8%	2.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	91.3%	5.3%	2.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	90.2%	5.5%	2.5%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	88.7%	5.7%	3.1%	1.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	88.2%	7.2%	2.3%	1.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	87.5%	7.4%	3.1%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	87.5%	7.2%	3.3%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.9%	6.8%	3.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.7%	8.3%	3.0%	1.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	86.7%	7.8%	3.7%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.7%	8.3%	2.3%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.2%	9.8%	2.3%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	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 91.6%. Overall it fell from 91.1% in 2009 to 86.2% in 2024, down 4.9 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Howard County: its share of workers rose from 4.5% in 2009 to 9.8% in 2024, up 5.3 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.7% to 2.3% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Public transit overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 5th most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Howard County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Howard County?

The bars show when commuters in Howard 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		4.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		14.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		19.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Howard County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.6% across Missouri. Early starts are less common than in Missouri: 8.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Missouri: 52.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.9%) 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 Howard 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 Howard 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 Howard 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	Howard County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:22 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:13 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Howard County were on the road by 7:32 AM, 11 minutes later than in 2009 (7:21 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Howard County now leave 6 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 Howard County has moved 18 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Howard County in the whole series.

How does Howard County's commute time compare?

Metric	Howard County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.6 min	21.0 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	9.8%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Howard County is 25.6 minutes, longer than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Missouri. 2.3% commute by walking, higher than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Howard County, MO Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Howard County, MO is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 10,147 residents against a local median of 23,231. Howard County, MO's one-way commute, at 25.6 min, runs 51% above the 16.9 min typical of the counties around it. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 9.8% against a local median of 7.0%, 41% above it. The counties themselves spread 10.7 min on one-way commute, so Howard County, MO sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Howard County, MO has the 6th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Howard County, MO	10,147	25.6 min #6/6	9.8% #2/6	7:32 AM #5/6
Cooper County, MO	16,823	22.6 min	6.4%	7:14 AM
Randolph County, MO	24,365	15.8 min	7.0%	7:16 AM
Boone County, MO	188,044	16.9 min	9.8%	7:48 AM
Chariton County, MO	7,390	20.4 min	8.4%	7:22 AM
Saline County, MO	23,231	11.9 min	3.9%	7:25 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Howard County, Missouri.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Howard County, Missouri?

Commuters here spend an estimated 213 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,606 at a typical national wage. That's 22% more than the typical Missouri commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Howard County, Missouri?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Howard County, Missouri. 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 do commute times compare across 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).