Butler County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 8:40 PM

Is the commute in Butler County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:40 PM

Commute Time Burden in Butler County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Butler 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 186 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 31% more time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 5.3 minutes.

Butler County holds about 0.4% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Butler County would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,301 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)
Butler County	22.3 min	44.5 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,752	693
Nebraska	17.0 min	34.0 min	142 hrs/yr	$4,390	691
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: Nebraska Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Nebraska

Hooker County (7.4 min)
Cherry County (8.0 min)
Box Butte County (8.0 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Nebraska

Cass County (28.0 min)
Banner County (27.2 min)
Saunders County (26.9 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Butler County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 22.3 minutes to get to work in Butler County. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 93% of counties in Nebraska

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 8.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Butler County

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Butler County: 5006866.7 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Butler County, versus 0.1% in Nebraska.

Biking is unusually rare in Butler County: 7.1 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Butler County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Butler 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	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	88.9%	6.5%	3.6%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	86.7%	8.0%	4.2%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	87.2%	8.1%	3.9%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	86.1%	9.8%	3.5%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	87.1%	9.0%	3.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	88.4%	7.9%	3.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	89.2%	7.8%	2.0%	0.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	86.3%	9.5%	2.7%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2017	88.3%	7.6%	2.6%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	89.2%	6.3%	3.2%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	87.6%	7.0%	3.7%	0.2%	1.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	86.8%	7.1%	5.2%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	85.1%	8.1%	5.7%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	87.1%	7.3%	5.0%	0.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	86.4%	8.4%	4.4%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.9%	8.7%	3.9%	0.3%	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 2015 at 89.2% and lowest in 2021 at 85.1%. Overall it fell from 88.9% in 2009 to 86.9% in 2024, down 2.0 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Butler County: its share of workers rose from 6.5% in 2009 to 8.7% in 2024, up 2.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 5.7% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 3.9%.

Commute Start Times in Butler County

Dawn PatrolThe 2nd-highest share of pre-6 AM departures among Nebraska's 93 counties: 25.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Butler County?

The bars show when commuters in Butler 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 Nebraska for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		9.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		9.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		22.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		6.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		2.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		0.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.0%

Butler County Nebraska Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Butler County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 22.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are more common than in Nebraska: 25.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Nebraska: 48.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (14.0%) 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 Butler 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 Butler 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 Butler County next to Nebraska 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	Butler County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:17 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:19 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:19 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Butler County were on the road by 7:21 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Nebraska, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Butler County now leave 16 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 Butler County has moved 10 minutes later.

How does Butler County's commute time compare?

Metric	Butler County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.3 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.7%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	3.9%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Butler County is 22.3 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 3.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Butler County, NE Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Butler County, NE is the 5th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 8,424 residents against a local median of 17,641. Butler County, NE's work from home, at 8.7%, runs 27% above the 6.9% typical of the counties around it.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 22.3 min against a local median of 17.8 min, 25% above it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 25% above the local median it puts Butler County, NE at the weaker end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 8.1% on work from home, so Butler County, NE sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Butler County, NE has the 3rd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Butler County, NE	8,424	22.3 min #5/6	8.7% #3/6	7:21 AM #2/6
Colfax County, NE	10,641	13.8 min	3.6%	7:43 AM
Seward County, NE	17,641	20.2 min	6.9%	7:29 AM
Polk County, NE	5,225	17.8 min	11.7%	7:28 AM
Saunders County, NE	23,048	26.9 min	9.9%	7:12 AM
Platte County, NE	34,716	12.3 min	5.3%	7:38 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Butler County, Nebraska.

Is commuting expensive in Butler County, Nebraska?

Commuters here spend an estimated 186 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,752 at a typical national wage. That's 31% more than the typical Nebraska commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Butler County, Nebraska?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Butler County, Nebraska. 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.

Which counties in Nebraska have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Nebraska, the shortest average commutes are in Hooker County (7.4 min), Cherry County (8.0 min), Box Butte County (8.0 min). The longest are in Cass County (28.0 min), Banner County (27.2 min), Saunders County (26.9 min).