Austin County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Austin County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Austin County spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 194 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% more time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 0.5 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Austin County would save about 78 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,408 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)
Austin County	23.3 min	46.6 min	194 hrs/yr	$6,021	882
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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: Texas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 23.3 minutes to get to work in Austin County. That's 4% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 76% of counties in Texas

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 8.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Austin County

• Car: 88.3%
• Worked at Home: 8.8%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 1.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Austin County: 125.6 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.9%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Austin County, versus 0.2% in Texas.

Biking is essentially absent in Austin County, versus 0.2% in Texas.

Commute Mode Trends in Austin County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Austin 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
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	89.9%	6.0%	2.5%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	88.1%	7.6%	3.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	89.2%	6.9%	2.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	90.2%	5.3%	2.4%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	91.8%	4.8%	2.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	90.9%	5.9%	1.8%	1.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	92.3%	5.3%	0.9%	1.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	90.6%	6.2%	1.7%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	92.1%	4.6%	1.9%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	93.0%	3.4%	2.1%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.8%	3.2%	2.4%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	90.3%	6.6%	1.8%	0.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.7%	6.8%	1.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.9%	7.9%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	9.2%	1.0%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	88.3%	8.8%	1.6%	1.2%	0.2%	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 2018 at 93.0% and lowest in 2010 at 88.1%. Overall it fell from 89.9% in 2009 to 88.3% in 2024, down 1.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Austin County: its share of workers rose from 6.0% in 2009 to 8.8% in 2024, up 2.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.5% to 1.6% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Austin County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Austin County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Austin County6.3% Texas5.5%	6.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Austin County4.0% Texas4.4%	4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Austin County5.0% Texas5.1%	5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Austin County13.1% Texas9.3%	13.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Austin County11.2% Texas9.3%	11.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Austin County24.3% Texas15.3%	24.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Austin County7.7% Texas11.8%	7.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Austin County12.2% Texas11.5%	12.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Austin County1.9% Texas4.8%	1.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Austin County2.7% Texas6.7%	2.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Austin County2.6% Texas3.1%	2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Austin County0.5% Texas1.3%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Austin County6.3% Texas5.8%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Austin County2.2% Texas6.2%	2.2%

Austin County Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Austin County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 24.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are about as common as in Texas: 15.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 55.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (14.4%) 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 Austin 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 Austin 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 Austin County next to Texas 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.

• Austin County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Austin County	Texas	United States
2009	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:10 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:10 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:10 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:06 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:01 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	6:59 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:02 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:00 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:09 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:13 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:14 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:13 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Austin County were on the road by 7:13 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:15 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Austin County now leave 25 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Austin County's commute time compare?

Metric	Austin County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.3 min	22.8 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	8.8%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Austin County is about the same as in Texas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.6% commute by walking, higher than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau