Prior Lake Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Prior 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

Is the commute in Prior Lake longer than the national average?

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

Commute Time Burden in Prior Lake: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Prior 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 198 hours, about 8.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 17% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.4 minutes.

Prior Lake holds about 0.4% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Prior Lake would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,450 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)
Prior Lake	23.7 min	47.4 min	198 hrs/yr	$6,126	2,311
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.

Prior Lake Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.7 minutes to get to work in Prior Lake. That's 6% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 24.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Prior Lake

Biking is unusually rare in Prior Lake: 242.8 times less than the Minnesota average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Prior Lake, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Prior 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	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	91.0%	5.1%	0.1%	0.8%	2.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	92.0%	4.4%	0.1%	0.6%	2.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	92.1%	4.4%	0.2%	0.5%	2.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	92.9%	4.2%	0.2%	0.5%	1.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	93.0%	4.5%	0.4%	0.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	92.8%	3.7%	0.5%	1.0%	1.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	92.5%	4.1%	0.5%	0.7%	1.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	91.0%	5.1%	0.3%	0.7%	2.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	90.4%	5.4%	0.3%	0.8%	2.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2018	89.4%	6.1%	0.1%	0.9%	3.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	89.3%	7.0%	0.1%	0.4%	3.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	84.0%	11.7%	1.0%	0.5%	2.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	80.9%	15.6%	1.1%	0.3%	1.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	77.6%	19.6%	0.8%	0.4%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	75.0%	21.4%	1.3%	1.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	71.8%	24.2%	1.5%	1.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	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 93.0%. Overall it fell from 91.0% in 2009 to 71.8% in 2024, down 19.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 11 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Prior Lake: its share of workers rose from 5.1% in 2009 to 24.2% in 2024, up 19.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 17.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.3% to 0.9% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Prior Lake

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Prior Lake?

The bars show when commuters in Prior 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		4.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		19.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.1%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		8.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.4%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Prior Lake is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are about as common as in Minnesota: 13.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Minnesota: 51.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.3%) 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 Prior 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 Prior 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 Prior 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	Prior Lake	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:22 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:31 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:32 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Prior Lake were on the road by 7:32 AM, 10 minutes later than in 2009 (7:22 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Prior Lake now leave 6 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 Prior Lake has moved 6 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Prior Lake in the whole series.

How does Prior Lake's commute time compare?

Metric	Prior Lake	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.7 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	24.2%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.9%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Prior Lake is 23.7 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.9% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Prior Lake, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Prior Lake, MN is the smallest of the 5 cities compared here, 23,998 residents against a local median of 53,350. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest cities, which makes Prior Lake, MN an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 14% above the local median at 23.7 min against 20.8 min. Prior Lake, MN has the 5th lowest one-way commute of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Prior Lake, MN	23,998	23.7 min #5/5	24.2% #2/5	7:32 AM #2/5
Shakopee, MN	44,264	21.5 min	18.0%	7:26 AM
Savage, MN	32,874	23.5 min	22.3%	7:45 AM
Eden Prairie, MN	62,436	20.2 min	31.8%	7:58 AM
Bloomington, MN	88,700	18.9 min	22.3%	7:52 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Prior Lake, Minnesota.

Is commuting expensive in Prior Lake, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 198 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,126 at a typical national wage. That's 17% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Prior Lake, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How much time do residents in Prior Lake, Minnesota save by working from home?

About 24.2% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Prior Lake would save about 79 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,450 at the same national wage assumption used above.