Jefferson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Jefferson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jefferson County spend about 61 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 255 hours, about 10.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 46% more time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 9.7 minutes.

Jefferson County holds about 3.7% of Missouri's population but accounts for roughly 5.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jefferson County would save about 102 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,168 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)
Jefferson County	30.7 min	61.3 min	255 hrs/yr	$7,919	1,883
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 30.7 minutes to get to work in Jefferson County. That's 37% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 94% of counties in Missouri

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Jefferson County

• Car: 86.7%
• Worked at Home: 11.5%
• Walked: 0.6%
• Other: 0.6%
• Motorcycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 5.9 times less than the Missouri average (0.1% vs 0.8%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 27.2 times less than the Missouri average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 20.1 times less than the Missouri average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Jefferson County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	95.5%	2.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	95.4%	2.6%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	95.8%	2.4%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	95.8%	2.6%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.5%	3.0%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	95.4%	3.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	95.6%	3.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	95.4%	3.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	95.0%	3.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	95.0%	3.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	94.8%	3.8%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.0%	5.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.2%	7.1%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.6%	8.6%	0.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.1%	10.1%	0.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.7%	11.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.3%	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 peaked in 2011 at 95.8%. Overall it fell from 95.5% in 2009 to 86.7% in 2024, down 8.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jefferson County: its share of workers rose from 2.5% in 2009 to 11.5% in 2024, up 9.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Jefferson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jefferson County?

The bars show when commuters in Jefferson 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 Jefferson County7.2% Missouri5.2%	7.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Jefferson County5.8% Missouri3.9%	5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Jefferson County7.9% Missouri5.3%	7.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Jefferson County12.0% Missouri9.0%	12.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Jefferson County11.0% Missouri10.4%	11.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Jefferson County15.4% Missouri15.0%	15.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Jefferson County10.3% Missouri13.6%	10.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Jefferson County8.3% Missouri10.1%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Jefferson County2.9% Missouri4.5%	2.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Jefferson County3.9% Missouri5.2%	3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Jefferson County2.1% Missouri2.6%	2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Jefferson County0.9% Missouri1.2%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Jefferson County6.5% Missouri7.0%	6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Jefferson County5.7% Missouri6.9%	5.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jefferson County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 20.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Missouri: 45.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.1%) 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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.

• Jefferson County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Jefferson County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:13 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:11 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:12 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:11 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jefferson County were on the road by 7:12 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Jefferson County now leave 26 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Jefferson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jefferson County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	30.7 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.5%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.6%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jefferson County is 30.7 minutes, longer than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 0.6% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau