Missouri County Commute Times
Recently
released five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community
Survey provide insight into how Missourians travel to work and the time it takes them to get there.
The 2005 to 2009 five-year average commuting time of the 2,756,390 workers age 16 or older in Missouri was 23.1 minutes. Missourians have a slightly shorter commute time compared to the national average of 25.2 minutes.
Washington County had the highest commute time in Missouri with 34.5 minutes. Other counties with an average commute time of more than 30 minutes were Lincoln (33.4), Caldwell (33.1), Bollinger (32.7), and Hickory (32.7).
Contributing to Missourians' commute time may be
the fact that 35.0 percent of Missouri workers age 16 or older
travel outside of their county of residence for work. Missouri
ranked 10th highest among the states for the percentage of workers
who are employed outside their county of residence and above the
U.S. average of 27.4 percent. Virginia (52.1 percent)
had the highest percentage of workers employed outside their home county.
The
majority of Missouri workers traveled for work from 2005 to 2009. Almost 81 percent of Missouri workers over age 16 traveled to work by
car, truck or van alone during this time. On average in the U.S., 75.9
percent of workers traveled to work by car, truck or van alone.
Carpooling by car, truck or van was most popular in Hawaii where
15.6 percent of workers carpooled from 2005 to 2009. In Missouri, 10.6 percent
of workers carpooled, slightly higher than the national five-year average of 10.5
percent.
The District of Columbia had the greatest use of public
transportation to work from 2005 to 2009, with 37.1 percent of workers using
public transportation. In Missouri, 1.5 percent of workers traveled
to work on public transportation, below the U.S. average of 5.0
percent. Public transportation includes traveling by bus,
trolley, streetcar, subway, railroad or ferryboat. It does not
include traveling by taxicab.
Source: Census Bureau: 2005-2009 ACS American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
