County Commute Times in Missouri
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 2006 to 2010 five-year average commuting time of the 2,752,405 workers age 16 or older in Missouri was 23.2 minutes. Missourians have a slightly shorter commute time compared to the national average of 25.2 minutes.
Caldwell County had the highest commute time in Missouri with 34.4 minutes. Other counties with an average commute time of 33 minutes or more were Washington (34.2), Benton (34.1), Lincoln (33.3), and Bollinger (33.0).
2006-2010 Five-Year Average Mean Travel Time to Work
Contributing to Missourians' commute time may be the fact that 29.1 percent of Missouri workers age 16 or older travel outside of their county of residence for work. Missouri ranked 9th highest among the states for the percentage of workers who are employed outside their county of residence and above the U.S. average of 23.6 percent. Virginia (43.0 percent) had the highest percentage of workers employed outside their home county. Andrew County, Missouri had the highest percentage employed outside the county with 69.7 percent commuting outside the county for employment.
Percent of Residents Employed Outside of Home County
The
majority of Missouri workers traveled for work from 2006 to 2010. 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., 76
percent of workers traveled to work by car, truck or van alone.
Carpooling by car, truck or van was most popular in Hawaii where
15.4 percent of workers carpooled from 2006 to 2010. In Missouri, 10.3 percent
of workers carpooled, slightly lower than the national five-year average of 10.4
percent. 
Shannon County, Missouri had the highest average for carpooling at 22.0 percent.
The District of Columbia had the greatest use of public
transportation to work from 2006 to 2010, with 37.6 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 4.9
percent. Public transportation includes traveling by bus,
trolley, streetcar, subway, railroad or ferryboat. It does not
include traveling by taxicab.
Source: Census Bureau: 2006-2010 ACS American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates
