St. Clair County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in St. Clair County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in St. Clair County spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 183 hours, about 7.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% more time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.0 minutes.

St. Clair 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 St. Clair County would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,273 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)
St. Clair County	22.0 min	44.0 min	183 hrs/yr	$5,683	516
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 22.0 minutes to get to work in St. Clair County. That's 2% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 8.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in St. Clair County

• Car: 89.1%
• Worked at Home: 8.8%
• Walked: 1.4%
• Other: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in St. Clair County: 4.1 times less than the Missouri average (0.2% vs 0.8%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in St. Clair County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in St. Clair 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
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	83.4%	8.7%	5.5%	1.2%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	85.0%	8.4%	5.0%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	87.0%	5.7%	6.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	87.2%	4.6%	5.5%	1.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	86.3%	5.4%	4.7%	2.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	88.8%	4.9%	4.1%	1.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	86.4%	5.7%	4.9%	2.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	84.7%	8.1%	4.1%	2.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	82.6%	10.9%	4.2%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	85.5%	9.5%	3.6%	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	86.5%	8.6%	3.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.9%	8.3%	3.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	89.1%	7.1%	2.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.8%	7.0%	2.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.0%	6.6%	2.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.1%	8.8%	1.4%	0.4%	0.2%	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 was highest in 2023 at 90.0% and lowest in 2017 at 82.6%. Overall it rose from 83.4% in 2009 to 89.1% in 2024, up 5.7 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.5% to 1.4% of workers (down 4.1 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 10.9% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 8.8%.

Commute Start Times in St. Clair County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in St. Clair County?

The bars show when commuters in St. Clair 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 St. Clair County6.6% Missouri5.2%	6.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM St. Clair County6.0% Missouri3.9%	6.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM St. Clair County6.8% Missouri5.3%	6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM St. Clair County9.9% Missouri9.0%	9.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM St. Clair County9.6% Missouri10.4%	9.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM St. Clair County15.0% Missouri15.0%	15.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM St. Clair County18.3% Missouri13.6%	18.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM St. Clair County5.5% Missouri10.1%	5.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM St. Clair County2.3% Missouri4.5%	2.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM St. Clair County7.1% Missouri5.2%	7.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM St. Clair County2.6% Missouri2.6%	2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM St. Clair County1.0% Missouri1.2%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM St. Clair County3.6% Missouri7.0%	3.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM St. Clair County5.7% Missouri6.9%	5.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in St. Clair County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 18.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.6% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Missouri's: 48.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.0%) 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 St. Clair 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 St. Clair 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 St. Clair 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.

• St. Clair County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	St. Clair County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:36 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in St. Clair County were on the road by 7:22 AM, 2 minutes later than in 2009 (7:20 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in St. Clair County now leave 16 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does St. Clair County's commute time compare?

Metric	St. Clair County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.0 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	8.8%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in St. Clair County is 22.0 minutes, longer than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 1.4% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau