Dawes County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dawes County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dawes County spend about 17 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 72 hours, about 3.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 49% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 8.4 minutes.

Dawes County holds about 0.4% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dawes County would save about 29 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $891 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)
Dawes County	8.6 min	17.3 min	72 hrs/yr	$2,228	133
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

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On average, it takes 8.6 minutes to get to work in Dawes County. That's 62% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 90% 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 walking. About 7.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dawes County

• Car: 82.9%
• Walked: 8.2% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 7.7%
• Other: 0.9%
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Dawes County, versus 0.1% in Nebraska.

Walking is unusually common in Dawes County: 3.5 times more than the Nebraska average (8.2% vs 2.3%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Dawes County: 9.8 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

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

Dawes County stands out for active commuting: 8.5% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.2 times the Nebraska average of 2.7%.

Commute Mode Trends in Dawes County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Dawes 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
• Walked
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Walked	Worked at Home	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	68.2%	16.9%	7.5%	0.8%	2.7%	3.1%	0.0%	0.8%
2010	73.2%	14.4%	6.3%	1.3%	2.2%	1.7%	0.0%	0.8%
2011	76.5%	12.7%	6.3%	0.8%	1.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.9%
2012	77.3%	12.9%	6.2%	0.6%	1.7%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	81.1%	12.7%	3.9%	0.4%	0.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	82.0%	12.5%	4.3%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	77.9%	15.4%	5.2%	0.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	78.8%	16.1%	3.6%	0.5%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	80.0%	14.4%	3.4%	0.7%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	78.4%	13.5%	4.7%	0.6%	2.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	81.1%	9.9%	6.4%	0.8%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	78.3%	9.8%	9.2%	1.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	79.1%	8.9%	10.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	80.3%	7.8%	9.2%	1.6%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.9%	8.1%	7.9%	1.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	82.9%	8.2%	7.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share rose from 68.2% in 2009 to 82.9% in 2024, up 14.7 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 4 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 16.9% to 8.2% of workers (down 8.7 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 10.4% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 7.7%.

Commute Start Times in Dawes County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dawes County?

The bars show when commuters in Dawes 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 Dawes County3.2% Nebraska4.3%	3.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dawes County0.7% Nebraska3.2%	0.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dawes County5.6% Nebraska5.1%	5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dawes County3.9% Nebraska7.7%	3.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dawes County10.4% Nebraska10.5%	10.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dawes County15.1% Nebraska15.5%	15.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dawes County18.5% Nebraska16.7%	18.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dawes County13.2% Nebraska10.5%	13.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dawes County2.8% Nebraska4.4%	2.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dawes County5.1% Nebraska4.8%	5.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dawes County1.6% Nebraska2.4%	1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dawes County2.0% Nebraska1.4%	2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dawes County13.4% Nebraska7.1%	13.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dawes County4.2% Nebraska6.5%	4.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dawes County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 18.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are less common than in Nebraska: 9.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Nebraska: 57.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.4%) 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 Dawes 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 Dawes 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 Dawes 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.

• Dawes County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dawes County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:57 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:50 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:52 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:50 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:53 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:48 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dawes County were on the road by 7:48 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:57 AM). The shift is sharper than across Nebraska, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Dawes County now leave 10 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Dawes County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Dawes County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dawes County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	8.6 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	7.7%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	8.2%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dawes County is 8.6 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 8.2% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau