Clearwater County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Clearwater County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Clearwater County spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.6 minutes.

Clearwater County holds about 0.2% of Minnesota's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Clearwater County would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,165 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)
Clearwater County	21.0 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,413	288
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.

Commute Time Map: Minnesota Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 21.0 minutes to get to work in Clearwater County. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 76% of counties in Minnesota

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Clearwater County

• Car: 86.8%
• Worked at Home: 7.6%
• Walked: 4.2%
• Other: 0.6%
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Clearwater County: 4.7 times less than the Minnesota average (0.4% vs 1.8%).

Biking is unusually rare in Clearwater County: 8.2 times less than the Minnesota average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Clearwater County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Clearwater County 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.9%	4.8%	4.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	89.1%	5.5%	4.1%	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	88.5%	6.1%	3.8%	0.5%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	88.1%	6.2%	4.0%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	89.2%	5.9%	2.9%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	89.6%	6.3%	2.0%	0.9%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	89.2%	5.8%	3.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	89.4%	6.2%	2.6%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	89.7%	5.7%	2.7%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	88.6%	6.8%	3.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	88.6%	6.5%	3.9%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	87.3%	6.8%	4.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	86.5%	7.4%	5.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	85.5%	8.2%	5.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	86.3%	7.8%	4.4%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	86.8%	7.6%	4.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2022 at 85.5%. Overall it fell from 89.9% in 2009 to 86.8% in 2024, down 3.1 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Clearwater County: its share of workers rose from 4.8% in 2009 to 7.6% in 2024, up 2.8 percentage points.

Commute Start Times in Clearwater County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Clearwater County?

The bars show when commuters in Clearwater County 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	12:00-4:59 AM Clearwater County1.9% Minnesota5.0%	1.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Clearwater County2.6% Minnesota3.8%	2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Clearwater County6.6% Minnesota5.2%	6.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Clearwater County10.9% Minnesota8.4%	10.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Clearwater County14.4% Minnesota10.2%	14.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Clearwater County14.3% Minnesota14.8%	14.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Clearwater County15.7% Minnesota13.8%	15.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Clearwater County10.1% Minnesota10.4%	10.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Clearwater County2.5% Minnesota4.7%	2.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Clearwater County3.9% Minnesota5.8%	3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Clearwater County2.3% Minnesota2.7%	2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Clearwater County1.1% Minnesota1.3%	1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Clearwater County8.1% Minnesota8.2%	8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Clearwater County5.6% Minnesota5.8%	5.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Clearwater County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are less common than in Minnesota: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Minnesota: 54.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.9%) 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 Clearwater County, 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 Clearwater County 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 Clearwater County 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.

• Clearwater County
• Minnesota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Clearwater County	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:25 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Clearwater County were on the road by 7:28 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:25 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Clearwater County now leave 9 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 Clearwater County has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Clearwater County's commute time compare?

Metric	Clearwater County	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 min	20.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.6%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	4.2%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Clearwater County is 21.0 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 4.2% commute by walking, higher than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau