Cookeville Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 4:20 PM

Is the commute in Cookeville longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:20 PM

Commute Time Burden in Cookeville: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cookeville spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 130 hours, about 5.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 30% less time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 6.8 minutes.

Cookeville holds about 0.5% of Tennessee's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cookeville would save about 52 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,613 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)
Cookeville	15.6 min	31.2 min	130 hrs/yr	$4,033	2,142
Tennessee	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,225
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.

Cookeville Commute Map

On average, it takes 15.6 minutes to get to work in Cookeville. That's 30% 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 10.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Cookeville

Walking is unusually common in Cookeville: 3.1 times more than the Tennessee average (3.8% vs 1.2%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Cookeville: 7.5 times less than the Tennessee average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Cookeville, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Cookeville 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	91.8%	3.3%	3.8%	0.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2010	92.7%	3.3%	2.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	93.2%	3.9%	2.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	95.0%	2.4%	1.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2013	95.8%	2.0%	1.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	96.1%	1.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	95.5%	2.2%	1.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	95.0%	2.3%	1.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2017	95.0%	2.6%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	94.6%	2.8%	1.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.5%
2019	93.7%	3.4%	1.8%	0.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2020	94.1%	3.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	92.8%	5.0%	1.9%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	91.0%	6.6%	1.9%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	87.7%	7.6%	4.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	84.9%	10.5%	3.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	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 2014 at 96.1%. Overall it fell from 91.8% in 2009 to 84.9% in 2024, down 6.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cookeville: its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 10.5% in 2024, up 7.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Cookeville

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cookeville?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		7.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

Cookeville Tennessee Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Cookeville is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.5% across Tennessee. Early starts are about as common as in Tennessee: 15.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Tennessee's: 46.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.5%) 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 Cookeville, 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 Cookeville 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 Cookeville next to Tennessee 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	Cookeville	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:42 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cookeville were on the road by 7:42 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Cookeville now leave 4 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 Cookeville has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Cookeville's commute time compare?

Metric	Cookeville	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.6 min	22.4 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	10.5%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	3.8%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Cookeville is 15.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Tennessee. 3.8% commute by walking, higher than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Cookeville, Tennessee.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Cookeville, Tennessee?

Commuters here spend an estimated 130 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,033 at a typical national wage. That's 30% less than the typical Tennessee commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Cookeville, Tennessee?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Cookeville, Tennessee. 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.