Polk County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Polk County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Polk County spend about 61 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 254 hours, about 10.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 36% more time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 8.1 minutes.

Polk County holds about 0.3% of Tennessee's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Polk County would save about 102 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,149 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)
Polk County	30.5 min	60.9 min	254 hrs/yr	$7,871	989
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 30.5 minutes to get to work in Polk County. That's 36% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 76% of counties in Tennessee

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Polk County

• Car: 89.3%
• Worked at Home: 8.3%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Polk County: 3.9 times less than the Tennessee average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Polk County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Polk 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	90.7%	4.4%	3.4%	1.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	92.2%	5.8%	1.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	93.3%	4.8%	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	94.0%	4.7%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	94.5%	3.5%	1.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	94.4%	2.8%	2.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	94.3%	2.7%	2.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	94.5%	3.0%	1.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	95.4%	2.3%	1.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	95.2%	2.8%	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	95.0%	3.6%	0.4%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	95.8%	3.1%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.3%	5.5%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.6%	5.9%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.7%	8.0%	1.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.3%	8.3%	2.0%	0.3%	0.1%	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 peaked in 2020 at 95.8%. Overall it fell from 90.7% in 2009 to 89.3% in 2024, down 1.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Polk County: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 3.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.4% to 2.0% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Polk County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Polk County?

The bars show when commuters in Polk 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 Polk County10.8% Tennessee5.8%	10.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Polk County7.1% Tennessee4.4%	7.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Polk County5.6% Tennessee5.5%	5.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Polk County11.8% Tennessee9.9%	11.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Polk County9.8% Tennessee10.1%	9.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Polk County17.3% Tennessee14.7%	17.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Polk County10.5% Tennessee11.5%	10.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Polk County4.2% Tennessee10.1%	4.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Polk County1.6% Tennessee4.5%	1.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Polk County4.9% Tennessee5.7%	4.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Polk County1.9% Tennessee2.5%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Polk County0.3% Tennessee1.2%	0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Polk County5.0% Tennessee6.8%	5.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Polk County9.1% Tennessee7.4%	9.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Polk County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 17.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Tennessee. Early starts are more common than in Tennessee: 23.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Tennessee: 41.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.2%) 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 Polk 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 Polk 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 Polk 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.

• Polk County
• Tennessee
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Polk County	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:24 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:15 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:11 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:08 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:08 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Polk County were on the road by 7:08 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:16 AM). Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Polk County now leave 29 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 Polk County has moved 7 minutes earlier.

How does Polk County's commute time compare?

Metric	Polk County	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	30.5 min	22.4 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.3%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Polk County is 30.5 minutes, longer than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Tennessee. 2.0% commute by walking, higher than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau