Houston County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Houston County, 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, 5:53 PM

Is the commute in Houston County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 5:53 PM

Commute Time Burden in Houston County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Houston County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 171 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.2 minutes.

Houston County holds about 0.3% of Minnesota's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Houston County would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,125 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)
Houston County	20.6 min	41.1 min	171 hrs/yr	$5,313	814
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Minnesota

Brown County (10.6 min)
Pennington County (10.8 min)
Cottonwood County (10.9 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Minnesota

Chisago County (30.9 min)
Wright County (28.8 min)
Sherburne County (28.8 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Houston County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 20.6 minutes to get to work in Houston County. That's 8% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 70% of counties in Minnesota

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Houston County

Public transit is unusually rare in Houston County: 5.5 times less than the Minnesota average (0.3% vs 1.8%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Houston County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Houston 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.

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	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	86.2%	6.3%	5.3%	0.3%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	87.1%	6.3%	4.2%	0.4%	1.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	87.9%	6.6%	3.6%	0.3%	1.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	87.9%	6.5%	4.0%	0.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2013	87.8%	6.5%	3.2%	1.1%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	87.8%	6.3%	3.1%	1.2%	1.0%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	87.9%	6.2%	3.4%	1.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	88.3%	6.0%	3.2%	1.3%	0.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	88.4%	5.9%	3.1%	1.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	88.5%	6.6%	3.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	88.8%	6.7%	2.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	89.0%	7.1%	2.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	87.8%	8.2%	2.6%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	86.1%	10.5%	2.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	84.5%	11.5%	2.0%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	82.7%	13.6%	1.9%	1.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 89.0%. Overall it fell from 86.2% in 2009 to 82.7% in 2024, down 3.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Houston County: its share of workers rose from 6.3% in 2009 to 13.6% in 2024, up 7.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.3% to 1.9% of workers (down 3.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Houston County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Houston County?

The bars show when commuters in Houston 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		8.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		13.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		2.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Houston County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 20.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Minnesota's: 49.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.3%) 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 Houston 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 Houston 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 Houston 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.

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

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Houston County	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:18 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:16 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:19 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Houston County were on the road by 7:12 AM, 10 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:22 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Houston County now leave 26 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 Houston County has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Houston County in the whole series.

How does Houston County's commute time compare?

Metric	Houston County	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.6 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.6%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Houston County is 20.6 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Houston County, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Houston County, MN is typical in size for this group, 18,653 residents against a local median of 21,414, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. The measure that sets Houston County, MN apart most is one-way commute: 20.6 min, 25% above the local median of 16.4 min. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 13.6% against a local median of 11.6%, 17% above it. The counties themselves spread 11.9 min on one-way commute, so Houston County, MN sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Houston County, MN has the 5th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Houston County, MN	18,653	20.6 min #5/6	13.6% #1/6	7:12 AM #1/6
Allamakee County, IA	14,091	18.3 min	7.1%	7:14 AM
Winona County, MN	49,782	13.2 min	10.0%	7:24 AM
La Crosse County, WI	120,486	16.4 min	11.6%	7:30 AM
Winneshiek County, IA	19,872	15.2 min	12.1%	7:29 AM
Fillmore County, MN	21,414	25.1 min	12.4%	7:17 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Houston County, Minnesota.

Is living in Houston County, Minnesota good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 171 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,313 at a typical national wage. That's 1% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Houston County, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Houston County, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Houston County, Minnesota?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.3% of commuters use it versus 1.8% in Minnesota, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

How do commute times compare across counties in Minnesota?

Among counties in Minnesota, the shortest average commutes are in Brown County (10.6 min), Pennington County (10.8 min), Cottonwood County (10.9 min). The longest are in Chisago County (30.9 min), Wright County (28.8 min), Sherburne County (28.8 min).