Apple Valley Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Apple Valley, Minnesota: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 1:38 PM

Is the commute in Apple Valley longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 1:38 PM

Commute Time Burden in Apple Valley: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Apple Valley spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 185 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 9% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 1.9 minutes.

Apple Valley holds about 1.0% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Apple Valley would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,296 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)
Apple Valley	22.2 min	44.4 min	185 hrs/yr	$5,740	4,046
Minnesota	20.3 min	40.6 min	169 hrs/yr	$5,249	854
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.

Apple Valley Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.2 minutes to get to work in Apple Valley. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 22.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Apple Valley

Walking is unusually rare in Apple Valley: 3.8 times less than the Minnesota average (0.7% vs 2.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Apple Valley, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Apple Valley 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Other	Walked	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.7%	3.8%	4.6%	0.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	88.6%	4.5%	4.9%	0.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	88.6%	4.8%	4.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	88.3%	5.4%	4.8%	0.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	88.2%	5.3%	5.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	87.8%	5.7%	5.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	88.8%	5.2%	4.7%	0.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	88.8%	5.6%	4.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	89.2%	5.0%	4.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	89.1%	4.7%	4.4%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	89.0%	4.9%	3.9%	0.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	83.4%	10.1%	3.9%	0.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	81.5%	12.7%	3.5%	0.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	78.2%	16.6%	2.7%	1.0%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	74.9%	19.9%	2.1%	1.1%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%
2024	73.0%	22.4%	2.0%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 89.7% in 2009 to 73.0% in 2024, down 16.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Apple Valley: its share of workers rose from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.4% in 2024, up 18.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 17.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.6% to 2.0% of workers (down 2.6 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Apple Valley

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Apple Valley?

The bars show when commuters in Apple Valley 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 Minnesota for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.5%

Apple Valley Minnesota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Apple Valley is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are less common than in Minnesota: 10.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Minnesota's: 50.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.0%) 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 Apple Valley, 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 Apple Valley 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 Apple Valley next to Minnesota 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Apple Valley	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:32 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:32 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:32 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:36 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Apple Valley were on the road by 7:44 AM, 15 minutes later than in 2009 (7:29 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Apple Valley now leave 6 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 Apple Valley has moved 15 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Apple Valley in the whole series.

How does Apple Valley's commute time compare?

Metric	Apple Valley	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.2 min	20.3 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.4%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.0%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Apple Valley is 22.2 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

2.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Apple Valley, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Apple Valley, MN is the smallest of the 4 cities compared here, 55,585 residents against a local median of 67,819. Apple Valley, MN sits close to the middle of its own neighbourhood. No measure below is more than 15% off the local median, so the choice between these cities turns on things this data does not capture.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 4% below the local median at 22.4% against 23.4%. Apple Valley, MN has the 3rd highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Apple Valley, MN	55,585	22.2 min #3/4	22.4% #3/4	7:44 AM #3/4
Eagan, MN	67,819	21.0 min	23.9%	7:53 AM
Burnsville, MN	64,463	21.6 min	17.0%	7:40 AM
Lakeville, MN	74,391	22.7 min	23.4%	7:38 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Apple Valley, Minnesota.

Is commuting expensive in Apple Valley, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 185 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,740 at a typical national wage. That's 9% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Apple Valley, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Apple Valley, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.