Photo: Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Lyons are higher than in 89% of U.S. towns
11.9% of residents live below the poverty line, next to 9.4% for Colorado as a whole. Jobs and income earn Lyons B+; getting around on foot earns it A. 46% of workers work from home, where Colorado as a whole has 21%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Lyons: the figures worth knowing
Where Lyons’ Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Lyons is better than 66% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Lyons’ grade up ($122,837, U.S. $80,734); the poverty rate pulls it down. It also does well on job access by car.
Unemployment (4.3%) is left out: Lyons’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Lyons could be anywhere from C+ to A.
The trip to work from Lyons: about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lyons workers work from home, vs 21% across Colorado. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 408 commuters (the 46% who work from home are left out). Across Colorado: 82% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Lyons quiets down on a workday
On a workday 755 residents head out to work, 62 work right here, and 490 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,900 people are in Lyons on a workday afternoon, 13% fewer than live here.
0.68 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
24% of working residents work in Boulder
Where Lyons clocks in
24% of workers
13% of workers
9% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Jobs in Lyons: what the 552 are
552 jobs are based in Lyons.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lyons, 2013 → 2023: 434 → 552. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2023.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Lyons’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Short hops and long hauls from Lyons
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Good to walk, short on transit: Lyons
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Lyons is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 10.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 6.4% across Colorado, on an EPA index of 8.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 751 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 2.4% of Lyons households have no vehicle (Colorado 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Lyons’ commuters take a bus or train.
Lyons is 1,374th of 5,404 U.S. towns of 1,500 to 2,900 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5 | Columbine Valley CO | 1,684 | $250K | 0.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 70 | Holly Hills CO | 2,572 | $122K | 6.1% | 0.0% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 144 | Acres Green CO | 2,639 | $142K | 8.0% | 1.0% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,372 | Linden CA | 2,389 | $126K | 2.8% | 18.3% | 5% | B+ |
| 1,373 | Cuartelez NM | 1,512 | $114K | 5.6% | 20.8% | 0% | B+ |
| 1,374 | Lyons CO | 2,119 | $123K | 11.9% | 4.3% | 8% | B+ |
| 1,375 | Country Club MO | 2,512 | $81K | 6.8% | 3.2% | 2% | B+ |
| 1,376 | Bernardston MA | 2,108 | $82K | 5.2% | 2.2% | 4% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,404 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Lyons, the top three, the last and three more from Colorado.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Lyons: questions
What is the median household income in Lyons?
$122,837 (±$37,933) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,470 across Colorado and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lyons?
11.9%, against 9.4% across Colorado and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lyons?
22 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Colorado and 26 nationally. 46% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lyons work?
8% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Boulder (24%, 14 mi), Longmont (13%, 10 mi), Denver (9%, 38 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lyons walkable?
Lyons is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.0 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lyons without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lyons, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lyons
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.