Clay County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Clay County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clay County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 170 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% more time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.5 minutes.

Clay County holds about 0.3% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clay County would save about 68 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,113 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)
Clay County	20.4 min	40.9 min	170 hrs/yr	$5,283	472
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

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 20.4 minutes to get to work in Clay County. That's 9% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 86% 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 6.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clay County

• Car: 90.0%
• Worked at Home: 6.7%
• Walked: 2.3%
• Other: 0.5%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Clay County: 7.2 times less than the Nebraska average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Clay County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clay 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
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	80.3%	11.5%	6.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	82.1%	10.3%	5.8%	0.8%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	83.5%	9.8%	5.1%	0.9%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	83.1%	10.4%	4.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	85.1%	8.0%	4.9%	1.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	88.4%	5.4%	4.7%	1.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	88.8%	4.8%	4.7%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	89.7%	4.7%	4.1%	1.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	92.2%	2.7%	3.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.0%	2.9%	3.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	90.8%	4.8%	2.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	88.2%	8.0%	2.2%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	88.2%	8.4%	1.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	87.1%	8.8%	2.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	8.1%	2.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	90.0%	6.7%	2.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 92.2%. Overall it rose from 80.3% in 2009 to 90.0% in 2024, up 9.7 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 11.5% to 6.7% of workers (down 4.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Clay County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clay County?

The bars show when commuters in Clay 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	12:00-4:59 AM Clay County5.0% Nebraska4.3%	5.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Clay County4.3% Nebraska3.2%	4.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Clay County6.4% Nebraska5.1%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Clay County7.9% Nebraska7.7%	7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Clay County11.2% Nebraska10.5%	11.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Clay County17.3% Nebraska15.5%	17.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Clay County20.9% Nebraska16.7%	20.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Clay County7.7% Nebraska10.5%	7.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Clay County1.8% Nebraska4.4%	1.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Clay County2.0% Nebraska4.8%	2.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Clay County1.3% Nebraska2.4%	1.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Clay County1.6% Nebraska1.4%	1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Clay County7.3% Nebraska7.1%	7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Clay County5.2% Nebraska6.5%	5.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Clay County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 20.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are more common than in Nebraska: 15.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Nebraska: 57.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.4%) 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 Clay 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 Clay 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 Clay 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.

• Clay County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clay County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:28 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clay County were on the road by 7:26 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Nebraska, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Clay County now leave 12 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 Clay County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Clay County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clay County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.4 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	6.7%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clay County is 20.4 minutes, longer than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau