Forest Lake Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Forest Lake, 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, 4:06 PM

How much time do drivers in Forest Lake spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:06 PM

Commute Time Burden in Forest Lake: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Forest Lake spend about 47 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 197 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.3 minutes.

Forest Lake holds about 0.4% of Minnesota's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Forest Lake would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,441 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)
Forest Lake	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,103	1,506
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.

Forest Lake Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.6 minutes to get to work in Forest Lake. That's 5% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 17.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Forest Lake

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Forest Lake: 3.7 times more than the Minnesota average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Forest Lake: 8.1 times less than the Minnesota average (0.2% vs 1.8%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Forest Lake, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Forest Lake 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi
2009	92.9%	3.5%	1.5%	0.0%	0.2%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	92.0%	3.9%	1.4%	0.0%	0.2%	2.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	91.8%	4.4%	1.4%	0.0%	0.1%	2.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	91.2%	4.7%	1.6%	0.2%	0.1%	2.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	90.8%	5.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	2.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	89.6%	6.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%	1.7%	0.6%	0.0%
2015	89.7%	5.8%	1.5%	0.2%	0.6%	1.7%	0.5%	0.0%
2016	90.1%	6.1%	1.4%	0.1%	0.5%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	89.5%	6.3%	2.0%	0.0%	0.4%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	89.3%	6.3%	2.2%	0.0%	0.3%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	90.6%	5.9%	1.6%	0.0%	0.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	90.6%	5.7%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	85.8%	10.3%	1.4%	0.4%	0.0%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	82.7%	13.1%	2.0%	0.3%	0.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	80.6%	16.1%	2.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	78.8%	17.7%	2.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 92.9% in 2009 to 78.8% in 2024, down 14.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Forest Lake: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 17.7% in 2024, up 14.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 11.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.5% to 0.2% of workers (down 1.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Forest Lake

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Forest Lake?

The bars show when commuters in Forest Lake 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		5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		8.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Forest Lake is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 12.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.4% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 17.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Minnesota: 40.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.2%) 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 Forest Lake, 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 Forest Lake 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 Forest Lake 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	Forest Lake	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:14 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:15 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:15 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:18 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Forest Lake were on the road by 7:31 AM, 16 minutes later than in 2009 (7:14 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Forest Lake now leave 7 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 Forest Lake has moved 14 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Forest Lake in the whole series.

How does Forest Lake's commute time compare?

Metric	Forest Lake	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.6 min	20.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 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	17.7%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	2.5%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Forest Lake is 23.6 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Forest Lake, Minnesota.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Forest Lake, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 197 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,103 at a typical national wage. That's 16% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Forest Lake, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Forest Lake, 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.

Do people use public transit in Forest Lake, Minnesota?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 1.8% in Minnesota, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.