Cottage Lake Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Cottage Lake: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Cottage Lake spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 196 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% more time on the road than the Washington average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

Cottage Lake holds about 0.3% of Washington's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Cottage Lake would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,435 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)
Cottage Lake	23.6 min	47.1 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,089	2,651
Washington	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,525
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.

Cottage Lake Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.6 minutes to get to work in Cottage Lake. That's 5% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 34.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Cottage Lake

• Car: 62.8%
• Worked at Home: 34.1%
• Public Transportation: 1.3%
• Walked: 0.9% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.5% unusually high
• Other: 0.3%
• Bicycle: 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Cottage Lake: 3.1 times more than the Washington average (0.5% vs 0.2%).

Walking is unusually rare in Cottage Lake: 3.5 times less than the Washington average (0.9% vs 3.0%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Cottage Lake, versus 0.1% in Washington.

Biking is unusually rare in Cottage Lake: 5.4 times less than the Washington average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Cottage Lake: just 1.0%, 3.7 times below the Washington average of 3.7%.

Commute Mode Trends in Cottage Lake, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Cottage Lake 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
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Motorcycle
• Other
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Walked	Motorcycle	Other	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	84.6%	9.2%	2.9%	1.9%	0.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2010	83.6%	10.3%	3.0%	1.8%	0.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%
2011	83.9%	11.6%	2.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	83.6%	11.5%	2.4%	1.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%
2013	84.7%	10.3%	2.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	84.0%	10.7%	3.1%	1.2%	0.1%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	82.8%	11.1%	3.7%	1.2%	0.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	83.2%	10.3%	4.1%	1.1%	0.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	82.6%	11.1%	3.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2018	81.9%	11.9%	4.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2019	83.0%	11.3%	3.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%
2020	80.3%	14.5%	3.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	74.0%	21.2%	2.7%	0.4%	0.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	70.7%	25.5%	2.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	66.1%	30.6%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	62.8%	34.1%	1.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 84.7%. Overall it fell from 84.6% in 2009 to 62.8% in 2024, down 21.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Cottage Lake: its share of workers rose from 9.2% in 2009 to 34.1% in 2024, up 24.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 22.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.9% to 1.3% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Cottage Lake

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Cottage Lake?

The bars show when commuters in Cottage Lake 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 Washington for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Cottage Lake2.7% Washington7.1%	2.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Cottage Lake2.7% Washington4.7%	2.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Cottage Lake2.7% Washington5.8%	2.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Cottage Lake4.5% Washington8.6%	4.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Cottage Lake8.2% Washington9.5%	8.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Cottage Lake16.8% Washington12.4%	16.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Cottage Lake7.7% Washington11.0%	7.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Cottage Lake15.1% Washington10.2%	15.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Cottage Lake9.4% Washington5.5%	9.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Cottage Lake15.0% Washington7.5%	15.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Cottage Lake4.2% Washington3.5%	4.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Cottage Lake1.3% Washington1.7%	1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Cottage Lake7.4% Washington6.9%	7.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Cottage Lake2.4% Washington5.6%	2.4%

Cottage Lake Washington Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Cottage Lake is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.4% across Washington. Early starts are less common than in Washington: 8.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Washington: 47.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.1% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (30.3%) 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 Cottage Lake, 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 Cottage Lake 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 Cottage Lake next to Washington 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.

• Cottage Lake
• Washington
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Cottage Lake	Washington	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:47 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:48 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:48 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:46 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:47 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:54 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:57 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:50 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:53 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:08 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Cottage Lake were on the road by 8:10 AM, 28 minutes later than in 2009 (7:42 AM). The shift is sharper than across Washington, where the typical start moved 2 minutes later. Commuters in Cottage Lake now leave 32 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Cottage Lake has moved 16 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Cottage Lake in the whole series.

How does Cottage Lake's commute time compare?

Metric	Cottage Lake	Washington	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.6 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	34.1%	19.8%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	3.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	3.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Cottage Lake is 23.6 minutes, longer than the 22.4 minutes in Washington.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.4% in Washington. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 3.0% in Washington.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau