Austin Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Austin, 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, 2:41 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Austin?

Map AI 9/24/26, 2:41 PM

Commute Time Burden in Austin: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Austin spend about 23 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 96 hours, about 4.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 43% less time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 8.7 minutes.

Austin holds about 0.4% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Austin would save about 39 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,195 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)
Austin	11.6 min	23.1 min	96 hrs/yr	$2,989	980
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.

Austin Commute Map

On average, it takes 11.6 minutes to get to work in Austin. That's 48% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 5.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Austin

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Austin: 10.0 times more than the Minnesota average (0.9% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Austin, versus 0.2% in Minnesota.

Working from home is unusually rare in Austin: 3.5 times less than the Minnesota average (5.0% vs 17.6%).

Commute Mode Trends in Austin, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Austin 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Other	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	87.5%	2.7%	2.8%	2.1%	0.6%	1.1%	3.2%	0.0%
2010	85.8%	2.7%	4.7%	2.1%	0.6%	1.8%	2.3%	0.0%
2011	86.4%	2.5%	5.4%	1.8%	0.6%	1.7%	1.6%	0.0%
2012	86.3%	3.1%	5.6%	2.2%	0.2%	1.7%	0.8%	0.0%
2013	87.2%	2.9%	4.4%	2.4%	0.3%	1.9%	1.0%	0.0%
2014	87.5%	2.8%	4.5%	2.1%	0.3%	1.6%	1.3%	0.0%
2015	89.4%	3.0%	3.2%	1.5%	0.2%	1.4%	1.3%	0.0%
2016	90.2%	1.6%	2.9%	2.1%	0.1%	1.3%	1.7%	0.0%
2017	90.8%	1.8%	2.8%	2.0%	0.0%	0.8%	1.8%	0.0%
2018	91.0%	2.1%	3.5%	1.8%	0.0%	0.6%	1.0%	0.0%
2019	92.4%	2.1%	2.3%	2.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%
2020	91.3%	2.6%	3.1%	2.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%
2021	91.8%	3.3%	2.6%	1.6%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	91.2%	3.7%	3.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	91.3%	3.9%	2.4%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	89.3%	5.0%	2.7%	1.5%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2019 at 92.4% and lowest in 2010 at 85.8%. Overall it rose from 87.5% in 2009 to 89.3% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Austin: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 5.0% in 2024, up 2.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 3.2% to 0.2% of workers (down 3.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 5.6% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 2.7%.

Commute Start Times in Austin

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Austin?

The bars show when commuters in Austin 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		5.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		4.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		20.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Austin is 12:00-3:59 PM, when 20.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.2% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 20.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Minnesota: 35.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (33.5%) 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 Austin, 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 Austin 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 Austin 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	Austin	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:53 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:42 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:32 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Austin were on the road by 7:35 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:36 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Austin now leave 3 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Austin has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Austin's commute time compare?

Metric	Austin	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.6 min	20.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.0%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	2.7%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.5%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Austin is 11.6 minutes, shorter than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

1.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 2.7% commute by walking, higher than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Austin, Minnesota.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Austin, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 96 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $2,989 at a typical national wage. That's 43% less than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Austin, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM in Austin, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.