Lake County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Lake County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lake County spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 150 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 4.4 minutes.

Lake County holds about 0.1% of Tennessee's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lake County would save about 60 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,862 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)
Lake County	18.0 min	36.0 min	150 hrs/yr	$4,655	317
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.

Commute Time Map: Tennessee Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.0 minutes to get to work in Lake County. That's 20% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 93% of counties in Tennessee

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 04:00 PM – 11:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 2.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lake County

• Car: 93.2%
• Worked at Home: 2.7% unusually low
• Walked: 2.2%
• Other: 1.8%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.0% in Tennessee.

Public transit is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.4% in Tennessee.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.1% in Tennessee.

Working from home is unusually rare in Lake County: 4.7 times less than the Tennessee average (2.7% vs 12.9%).

Biking is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.1% in Tennessee.

Commute Mode Trends in Lake County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lake 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	96.8%	1.1%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	97.6%	1.0%	0.3%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	98.0%	0.6%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	97.0%	0.7%	1.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	96.6%	1.5%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	95.9%	1.0%	1.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	91.7%	2.3%	5.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	90.4%	2.7%	6.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	90.7%	2.6%	4.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.0%	1.9%	3.9%	2.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.7%	3.1%	2.5%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.3%	2.2%	3.1%	1.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	93.1%	1.2%	2.4%	3.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	95.3%	1.3%	1.3%	2.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	94.4%	1.6%	1.9%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	93.2%	2.7%	2.2%	1.8%	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 2011 at 98.0% and lowest in 2016 at 90.4%. Overall it fell from 96.8% in 2009 to 93.2% in 2024, down 3.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lake County: its share of workers rose from 1.1% in 2009 to 2.7% in 2024, up 1.6 percentage points.

Walking peaked at 6.2% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 2.2%.

Commute Start Times in Lake County

• 😴 Sleeping InThe highest share of 9 AM-or-later starts among Tennessee's 95 counties: 31.1% of commuters leave at 9 AM or later.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lake County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Lake County10.6% Tennessee5.8%	10.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Lake County3.7% Tennessee4.4%	3.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Lake County6.2% Tennessee5.5%	6.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Lake County10.2% Tennessee9.9%	10.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Lake County10.3% Tennessee10.1%	10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Lake County6.4% Tennessee14.7%	6.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Lake County11.9% Tennessee11.5%	11.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Lake County8.3% Tennessee10.1%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Lake County1.2% Tennessee4.5%	1.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Lake County4.5% Tennessee5.7%	4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Lake County2.1% Tennessee2.5%	2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Lake County3.4% Tennessee1.2%	3.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Lake County10.3% Tennessee6.8%	10.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Lake County10.8% Tennessee7.4%	10.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Lake County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 11.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.5% across Tennessee. Early starts are more common than in Tennessee: 20.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Tennessee: 37.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (31.1%) 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 Lake 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 Lake 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 Lake County 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.

• Lake County
• Tennessee
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Lake County	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:32 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:32 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:32 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:37 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:27 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lake County were on the road by 7:37 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:41 AM). Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Lake County now leave 1 minute 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 Lake County has moved 14 minutes later.

How does Lake County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lake County	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.0 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	04:00 PM – 11:59 PM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	2.7%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.2%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lake County is 18.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Tennessee. 2.2% commute by walking, higher than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau