Elk River Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

Commuting in Elk River, 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, 1:21 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Elk River?

Map AI 9/24/26, 1:21 PM

Commute Time Burden in Elk River: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Elk River spend about 53 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 219 hours, about 9.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 29% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 5.9 minutes.

Elk River holds about 0.5% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Elk River would save about 88 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,714 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)
Elk River	26.3 min	52.5 min	219 hrs/yr	$6,786	1,279
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.

Elk River Commute Map

On average, it takes 26.3 minutes to get to work in Elk River. That's 17% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 15.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Elk River

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Elk River: 3.5 times more than the Minnesota average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Walking is unusually rare in Elk River: 6.1 times less than the Minnesota average (0.4% vs 2.5%).

Biking is unusually rare in Elk River: 49799690.7 times less than the Minnesota average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Elk River: just 0.4%, 7.3 times below the Minnesota average of 3.0%.

Commute Mode Trends in Elk River, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Elk River 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	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	91.9%	3.1%	1.8%	0.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.7%
2010	91.9%	3.4%	1.6%	0.8%	1.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.5%
2011	92.7%	3.3%	1.8%	0.8%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	92.2%	3.5%	2.4%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	92.8%	3.3%	2.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	92.2%	3.9%	2.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	92.1%	4.2%	1.9%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	90.7%	5.2%	2.0%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%
2017	92.2%	4.6%	1.2%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2018	91.0%	5.3%	1.5%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2019	90.1%	6.1%	1.8%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2020	88.7%	7.8%	1.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.5%
2021	85.8%	9.8%	1.4%	0.7%	0.9%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%
2022	84.3%	11.3%	1.9%	0.7%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%
2023	82.5%	14.0%	1.4%	0.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%
2024	81.3%	15.7%	1.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 92.8%. Overall it fell from 91.9% in 2009 to 81.3% in 2024, down 10.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Elk River: its share of workers rose from 3.1% in 2009 to 15.7% in 2024, up 12.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.6% to 0.4% of workers (down 1.2 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Elk River

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Elk River?

The bars show when commuters in Elk River 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		8.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		13.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Elk River is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 19.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Minnesota: 46.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.2%) 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 Elk River, 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 Elk River 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 Elk River 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	Elk River	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:09 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:01 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:01 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	6:55 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:01 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:01 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:10 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Elk River were on the road by 7:10 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:16 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Elk River now leave 28 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 Elk River has moved 9 minutes later.

How does Elk River's commute time compare?

Metric	Elk River	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	26.3 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.7%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	0.4%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Elk River is 26.3 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 0.4% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Elk River, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Elk River, MN compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Elk River, MN	27,601	26.3 min #1/3	15.7% #2/3	7:10 AM #1/3
Otsego, MN	20,942	31.1 min	14.0%	7:18 AM
Ramsey, MN	28,458	26.7 min	17.3%	7:11 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Elk River, Minnesota.

Is living in Elk River, Minnesota good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 219 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,786 at a typical national wage. That's 29% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Elk River, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Elk River, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.