Valley County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Valley County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Valley County spend about 21 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 88 hours, about 3.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 38% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 6.4 minutes.

Valley County holds about 0.2% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Valley County would save about 35 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,092 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)
Valley County	10.6 min	21.1 min	88 hrs/yr	$2,729	280
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 10.6 minutes to get to work in Valley County. That's 53% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 79% 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 5.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Valley County

• Car: 91.3%
• Worked at Home: 5.0%
• Walked: 3.1%
• Other: 0.6%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Valley County: 14195154.1 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Valley County, versus 0.5% in Nebraska.

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

Biking is unusually rare in Valley County: 22882684.7 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Valley County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Valley 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	82.8%	11.8%	2.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.3%
2010	82.3%	13.4%	2.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2011	83.2%	11.1%	3.3%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.6%
2012	84.9%	9.5%	3.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.7%
2013	83.6%	10.1%	4.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%
2014	86.1%	8.1%	5.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	86.1%	7.8%	5.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2016	87.3%	7.5%	5.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	87.7%	6.5%	5.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	87.3%	7.9%	4.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	89.4%	8.2%	2.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	92.4%	4.6%	2.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.1%	6.7%	1.8%	1.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.2%	6.7%	2.0%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	92.6%	4.1%	2.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.3%	5.0%	3.1%	0.6%	0.0%	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 92.6% and lowest in 2010 at 82.3%. Overall it rose from 82.8% in 2009 to 91.3% in 2024, up 8.5 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 11.8% to 5.0% of workers (down 6.8 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 5.8% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 3.1%.

Commute Start Times in Valley County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Valley County?

The bars show when commuters in Valley 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 Valley County4.4% Nebraska4.3%	4.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Valley County1.4% Nebraska3.2%	1.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Valley County8.3% Nebraska5.1%	8.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Valley County8.8% Nebraska7.7%	8.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Valley County8.6% Nebraska10.5%	8.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Valley County14.7% Nebraska15.5%	14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Valley County23.2% Nebraska16.7%	23.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Valley County11.9% Nebraska10.5%	11.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Valley County3.8% Nebraska4.4%	3.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Valley County3.6% Nebraska4.8%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Valley County1.9% Nebraska2.4%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Valley County2.1% Nebraska1.4%	2.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Valley County3.2% Nebraska7.1%	3.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Valley County3.9% Nebraska6.5%	3.9%

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

The busiest time to head out in Valley County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 23.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are more common than in Nebraska: 14.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Nebraska: 58.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (14.8%) 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 Valley 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 Valley 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 Valley 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.

• Valley County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Valley County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:39 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:36 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:41 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Valley County were on the road by 7:35 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:42 AM). The shift is sharper than across Nebraska, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Valley County now leave 3 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Valley County's commute time compare?

Metric	Valley County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	10.6 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	5.0%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	3.1%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Valley County is 10.6 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 3.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau