Howard County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Howard County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Howard 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 113 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 9.3 minutes.

Howard 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 Howard County would save about 45 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,398 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)
Howard County	13.5 min	27.1 min	113 hrs/yr	$3,495	478
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 13.5 minutes to get to work in Howard County. That's 40% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 76% 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 working from home. About 3.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Howard County

• Car: 95.1%
• Worked at Home: 3.0% unusually low
• Walked: 1.0%
• Other: 0.7%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Howard County, versus 0.1% in Texas.

Public transit is unusually rare in Howard County: 19616538.4 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.9%).

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

Working from home is unusually rare in Howard County: 4.7 times less than the Texas average (3.0% vs 14.4%).

Biking is unusually rare in Howard County: 3.1 times less than the Texas average (0.1% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Howard County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	93.4%	2.3%	1.8%	1.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	93.2%	2.0%	3.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	93.0%	2.1%	3.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2012	93.2%	2.3%	2.4%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2013	93.8%	2.0%	2.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	94.7%	1.9%	2.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	95.6%	1.7%	1.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	95.9%	1.2%	1.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	96.0%	1.1%	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	94.8%	1.6%	1.6%	1.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	95.2%	1.9%	1.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2020	94.8%	2.0%	1.4%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	95.1%	2.4%	1.2%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	95.8%	2.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	94.8%	3.8%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	95.1%	3.0%	1.0%	0.7%	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 was highest in 2017 at 96.0% and lowest in 2011 at 93.0%. Overall it rose from 93.4% in 2009 to 95.1% in 2024, up 1.7 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Howard County: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 3.0% in 2024, up 0.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.8% to 1.0% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Howard County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Howard County?

The bars show when commuters in Howard 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 Howard County5.9% Texas5.5%	5.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Howard County4.5% Texas4.4%	4.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Howard County6.0% Texas5.1%	6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Howard County10.1% Texas9.3%	10.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Howard County12.2% Texas9.3%	12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Howard County13.9% Texas15.3%	13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Howard County16.8% Texas11.8%	16.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Howard County10.9% Texas11.5%	10.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Howard County3.0% Texas4.8%	3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Howard County3.8% Texas6.7%	3.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Howard County2.9% Texas3.1%	2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Howard County0.7% Texas1.3%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Howard County4.9% Texas5.8%	4.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Howard County4.4% Texas6.2%	4.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Howard County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Texas. Early starts are more common than in Texas: 16.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 53.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.7%) 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 Howard 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 Howard 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 Howard 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.

• Howard County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Howard County	Texas	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:39 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:36 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:33 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:34 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:33 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:17 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Howard County were on the road by 7:25 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:35 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Howard County now leave 13 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 Howard County has moved 7 minutes earlier.

How does Howard County's commute time compare?

Metric	Howard County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.5 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	3.0%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Howard County is 13.5 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau