Dawson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dawson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dawson County spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 112 hours, about 4.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 41% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 9.4 minutes.

Dawson County holds about 0.0% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dawson County would save about 45 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,385 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)
Dawson County	13.4 min	26.8 min	112 hrs/yr	$3,462	214
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 13.4 minutes to get to work in Dawson County. That's 40% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 77% of counties in Texas

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 other means. About 3.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dawson County

• Car: 90.3%
• Other: 4.8%
• Worked at Home: 3.2% unusually low
• Walked: 1.7%
• 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 Dawson County, versus 0.1% in Texas.

Public transit is essentially absent in Dawson County, versus 0.9% in Texas.

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

Working from home is unusually rare in Dawson County: 4.5 times less than the Texas average (3.2% vs 14.4%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Dawson County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Dawson 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
• Other
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Other	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.0%	3.4%	3.4%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	94.2%	1.8%	2.8%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	94.4%	1.6%	2.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2012	94.4%	1.3%	2.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2013	93.1%	2.3%	2.8%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2014	93.8%	1.5%	2.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	1.0%	0.0%
2015	94.7%	0.7%	1.8%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	1.3%	0.0%
2016	95.6%	0.8%	1.7%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	94.3%	0.3%	2.9%	2.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	93.1%	0.5%	3.0%	2.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2019	92.3%	0.5%	4.3%	2.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	91.1%	0.6%	5.4%	2.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	91.6%	0.8%	5.2%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	92.5%	1.5%	4.1%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	90.6%	5.1%	3.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	90.3%	4.8%	3.2%	1.7%	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 peaked in 2016 at 95.6%. Overall it fell from 92.0% in 2009 to 90.3% in 2024, down 1.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Walking gained the most ground in Dawson County: its share of workers rose from 1.1% in 2009 to 1.7% in 2024, up 0.6 percentage points.

Working from home peaked at 5.4% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 3.2%.

Commute Start Times in Dawson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dawson County?

The bars show when commuters in Dawson 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 Dawson County5.8% Texas5.5%	5.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dawson County3.9% Texas4.4%	3.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dawson County5.0% Texas5.1%	5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dawson County7.0% Texas9.3%	7.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dawson County6.5% Texas9.3%	6.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dawson County16.6% Texas15.3%	16.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dawson County17.9% Texas11.8%	17.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dawson County12.7% Texas11.5%	12.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dawson County3.4% Texas4.8%	3.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dawson County3.1% Texas6.7%	3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dawson County4.8% Texas3.1%	4.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dawson County3.3% Texas1.3%	3.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dawson County6.1% Texas5.8%	6.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dawson County3.8% Texas6.2%	3.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dawson County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 17.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Texas. Early starts are about as common as in Texas: 14.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 53.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.1%) 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 Dawson 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 Dawson 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 Dawson 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.

• Dawson County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dawson County	Texas	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:34 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:43 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:42 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:39 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dawson County were on the road by 7:39 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:42 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Dawson County now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Dawson County has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Dawson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dawson County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.4 min	22.8 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	3.2%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dawson County is 13.4 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.7% commute by walking, higher than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau