McDonald County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in McDonald County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in McDonald County spend about 48 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 199 hours, about 8.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% more time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 2.9 minutes.

McDonald County holds about 0.4% of Missouri's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in McDonald County would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,464 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)
McDonald County	23.8 min	47.7 min	199 hrs/yr	$6,161	1,361
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 23.8 minutes to get to work in McDonald County. That's 6% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 79% 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 8.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in McDonald County

• Car: 87.5%
• Worked at Home: 8.1%
• Other: 2.0%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Motorcycle: 0.5% unusually high
• Public Transportation: 0.3%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in McDonald County: 4.2 times more than the Missouri average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in McDonald County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.7%	4.1%	1.3%	1.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	91.2%	4.8%	2.2%	1.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	91.2%	4.6%	2.2%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	90.8%	4.7%	2.0%	2.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	91.1%	5.0%	1.4%	1.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	92.1%	4.5%	1.0%	1.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	92.9%	4.2%	0.5%	1.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	93.7%	3.3%	0.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	93.3%	3.7%	1.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	93.0%	4.1%	0.8%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2019	92.3%	5.1%	0.8%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	89.6%	7.5%	1.0%	1.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	89.4%	7.9%	0.3%	2.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.9%	8.1%	0.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.0%	8.4%	1.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.5%	8.1%	2.0%	1.6%	0.5%	0.3%	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 2016 at 93.7%. Overall it fell from 92.7% in 2009 to 87.5% in 2024, down 5.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in McDonald County: its share of workers rose from 4.1% in 2009 to 8.1% in 2024, up 4.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in McDonald County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in McDonald County?

The bars show when commuters in McDonald 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 McDonald County8.8% Missouri5.2%	8.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM McDonald County5.3% Missouri3.9%	5.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM McDonald County6.4% Missouri5.3%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM McDonald County11.4% Missouri9.0%	11.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM McDonald County11.4% Missouri10.4%	11.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM McDonald County14.0% Missouri15.0%	14.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM McDonald County7.8% Missouri13.6%	7.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM McDonald County8.7% Missouri10.1%	8.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM McDonald County1.4% Missouri4.5%	1.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM McDonald County2.7% Missouri5.2%	2.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM McDonald County1.5% Missouri2.6%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM McDonald County1.0% Missouri1.2%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM McDonald County11.2% Missouri7.0%	11.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM McDonald County8.5% Missouri6.9%	8.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in McDonald County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 20.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Missouri: 41.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.8%) 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 McDonald 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 McDonald 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 McDonald 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.

• McDonald County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	McDonald County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:15 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:14 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	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:11 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:12 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:18 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:15 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 McDonald County were on the road by 7:15 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in McDonald County now leave 23 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 McDonald County has moved 5 minutes earlier.

How does McDonald County's commute time compare?

Metric	McDonald County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.8 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	8.1%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in McDonald County is 23.8 minutes, longer than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.3% 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