Douglas County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Douglas County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Douglas County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 142 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 15% less time on the road than the Oregon average of 20.1 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Douglas County holds about 2.6% of Oregon's population but accounts for roughly 2.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Douglas County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,765 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)
Douglas County	17.1 min	34.2 min	142 hrs/yr	$4,411	520
Oregon	20.1 min	40.3 min	168 hrs/yr	$5,203	967
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: Oregon Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.1 minutes to get to work in Douglas County. That's 24% 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 12.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Douglas County

• Car: 83.6%
• Worked at Home: 12.3%
• Walked: 2.4%
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Douglas County: 7.0 times less than the Oregon average (0.3% vs 2.2%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Douglas County: 18.1 times less than the Oregon average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually rare in Douglas County: 6.2 times less than the Oregon average (0.2% vs 1.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Douglas County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Douglas 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
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	88.4%	6.3%	2.8%	0.7%	0.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	88.2%	6.3%	2.8%	1.0%	0.2%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	87.6%	6.6%	2.9%	1.2%	0.2%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	87.5%	7.0%	2.6%	1.1%	0.2%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	87.9%	6.1%	2.7%	1.3%	0.4%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	88.4%	5.9%	3.1%	1.1%	0.3%	0.8%	0.4%	0.1%
2015	88.5%	6.2%	2.9%	1.2%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	89.2%	5.8%	2.8%	1.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	89.9%	5.2%	2.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	89.9%	5.7%	2.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%
2019	90.4%	5.7%	2.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	90.0%	6.5%	2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	88.6%	7.9%	2.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	86.9%	9.3%	2.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	86.3%	9.7%	2.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	83.6%	12.3%	2.4%	1.0%	0.3%	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 2019 at 90.4%. Overall it fell from 88.4% in 2009 to 83.6% in 2024, down 4.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Douglas County: its share of workers rose from 6.3% in 2009 to 12.3% in 2024, up 6.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 1.0% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Douglas County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Douglas County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Douglas County9.1% Oregon5.9%	9.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Douglas County3.4% Oregon3.8%	3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Douglas County6.1% Oregon5.0%	6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Douglas County7.9% Oregon7.6%	7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Douglas County7.8% Oregon9.7%	7.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Douglas County13.0% Oregon13.0%	13.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Douglas County14.5% Oregon13.0%	14.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Douglas County8.0% Oregon10.6%	8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Douglas County5.3% Oregon5.8%	5.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Douglas County6.6% Oregon7.2%	6.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Douglas County3.0% Oregon3.7%	3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Douglas County1.4% Oregon1.8%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Douglas County7.5% Oregon7.1%	7.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Douglas County6.5% Oregon5.7%	6.5%

Douglas County Oregon Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Douglas County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Oregon. Early starts are more common than in Oregon: 18.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Oregon: 43.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.0%) 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 Douglas 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 Douglas 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 Douglas County next to Oregon 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.

• Douglas County
• Oregon
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Douglas County	Oregon	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:33 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:33 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:33 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:35 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Douglas County were on the road by 7:36 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Oregon, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Douglas County now leave 2 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 Douglas County has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Douglas County's commute time compare?

Metric	Douglas County	Oregon	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.1 min	20.1 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	12.3%	19.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	3.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	2.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Douglas County is 17.1 minutes, shorter than the 20.1 minutes in Oregon.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.2% in Oregon. 2.4% commute by walking, lower than the 3.3% in Oregon.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau