Harker Heights Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Harker Heights, Texas: 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

How long is the round-trip commute in Harker Heights?

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

Commute Time Burden in Harker Heights: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Harker Heights spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 174 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 1.9 minutes.

Harker Heights 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 Harker Heights would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,157 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)
Harker Heights	20.9 min	41.8 min	174 hrs/yr	$5,393	2,357
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.

Harker Heights Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.9 minutes to get to work in Harker Heights. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Harker Heights

Walking is unusually rare in Harker Heights: 3.3 times less than the Texas average (0.4% vs 1.5%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Harker Heights: 5.0 times less than the Texas average (0.2% vs 0.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Harker Heights: 12.7 times more than the Texas average (2.1% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Harker Heights, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Harker Heights 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	Taxi	Other	Walked	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle
2009	94.5%	2.1%	0.0%	0.4%	2.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2010	94.9%	1.9%	0.0%	0.5%	2.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	95.4%	1.4%	0.0%	0.9%	1.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.2%
2012	94.6%	2.0%	0.0%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2013	94.3%	2.4%	0.0%	1.5%	1.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	93.9%	2.9%	0.0%	2.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2015	92.1%	4.1%	0.0%	1.6%	0.5%	0.8%	0.4%	0.6%
2016	92.2%	4.7%	0.0%	1.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.5%
2017	92.2%	4.2%	0.1%	1.8%	0.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.5%
2018	92.9%	3.5%	0.3%	0.5%	1.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.8%
2019	92.8%	3.6%	0.3%	0.4%	1.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.7%
2020	90.0%	4.9%	2.7%	0.3%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2021	89.9%	5.0%	2.6%	0.5%	1.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2022	88.2%	7.2%	2.5%	0.5%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2023	87.8%	8.8%	2.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	88.2%	7.5%	2.1%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2011 at 95.4% and lowest in 2023 at 87.8%. Overall it fell from 94.5% in 2009 to 88.2% in 2024, down 6.3 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Harker Heights: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 7.5% in 2024, up 5.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.3% to 0.4% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2012 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 8.8% in 2023 and has since fallen back to 7.5%.

Commute Start Times in Harker Heights

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Harker Heights?

The bars show when commuters in Harker Heights 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		6.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		7.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		6.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		3.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

Harker Heights Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Harker Heights is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are more common than in Texas: 22.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Texas: 39.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.6%) 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 Harker Heights, 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 Harker Heights 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 Harker Heights 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Harker Heights	Texas	United States
2009	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:15 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:18 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Harker Heights were on the road by 7:21 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:24 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Harker Heights now leave 17 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 Harker Heights has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Harker Heights's commute time compare?

Metric	Harker Heights	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.9 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.5%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	0.4%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Harker Heights is 20.9 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 0.4% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Harker Heights, TX Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Harker Heights, TX compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Harker Heights, TX	29,853	20.9 min #3/3	7.5% #3/3	7:21 AM #3/3
Killeen, TX	148,206	18.4 min	7.6%	7:01 AM
Fort Hood, TX	23,244	11.4 min	11.0%	6:19 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Harker Heights, Texas.

Is living in Harker Heights, Texas good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 174 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,393 at a typical national wage. That's 8% less than the typical Texas commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Harker Heights, Texas?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Harker Heights, Texas. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Harker Heights, Texas?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.9% in Texas, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.