Scott County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Scott County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Scott County spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 194 hours, about 8.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.9 minutes.

Scott County holds about 2.7% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 3.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Scott County would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,400 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)
Scott County	23.2 min	46.4 min	194 hrs/yr	$6,000	2,049
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 23.2 minutes to get to work in Scott County. That's 4% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 86% of counties in Minnesota

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Scott County

• Car: 77.3%
• Worked at Home: 19.7%
• Other: 1.5%
• Walked: 0.7% unusually low
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Bicycle: 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Walking is unusually rare in Scott County: 3.7 times less than the Minnesota average (0.7% vs 2.5%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Scott County: 4.4 times less than the Minnesota average (0.4% vs 1.8%).

Biking is unusually rare in Scott County: 3.9 times less than the Minnesota average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Scott County: just 0.8%, 3.7 times below the Minnesota average of 3.0%.

Commute Mode Trends in Scott County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Scott 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
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	91.0%	4.7%	0.6%	1.3%	2.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	90.4%	4.9%	0.8%	1.6%	1.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	90.7%	5.0%	0.7%	1.4%	1.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	90.4%	5.4%	0.8%	1.2%	1.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2013	91.0%	5.3%	0.7%	0.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	91.0%	5.2%	0.7%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	91.1%	5.0%	0.7%	0.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	90.7%	5.6%	0.6%	0.9%	1.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	90.7%	5.6%	0.5%	1.0%	1.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	90.3%	5.9%	0.4%	0.9%	2.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2019	90.1%	6.3%	0.4%	0.9%	2.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	87.6%	9.4%	0.4%	0.6%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	84.2%	12.5%	0.8%	0.6%	1.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2022	81.2%	15.9%	0.8%	0.7%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2023	79.6%	17.6%	1.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	77.3%	19.7%	1.5%	0.7%	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 peaked in 2015 at 91.1%. Overall it fell from 91.0% in 2009 to 77.3% in 2024, down 13.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Scott County: its share of workers rose from 4.7% in 2009 to 19.7% in 2024, up 15.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.0% to 0.4% of workers (down 1.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Scott County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Scott County?

The bars show when commuters in Scott 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 Scott County4.7% Minnesota5.0%	4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Scott County3.4% Minnesota3.8%	3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Scott County6.2% Minnesota5.2%	6.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Scott County9.1% Minnesota8.4%	9.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Scott County11.0% Minnesota10.2%	11.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Scott County15.9% Minnesota14.8%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Scott County13.0% Minnesota13.8%	13.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Scott County9.5% Minnesota10.4%	9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Scott County4.7% Minnesota4.7%	4.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Scott County6.2% Minnesota5.8%	6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Scott County2.0% Minnesota2.7%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Scott County1.1% Minnesota1.3%	1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Scott County7.5% Minnesota8.2%	7.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Scott County5.8% Minnesota5.8%	5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Scott County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are about as common as in Minnesota: 14.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Minnesota's: 49.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.5%) 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 Scott 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 Scott 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 Scott 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.

• Scott County
• Minnesota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Scott County	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:24 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:25 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:24 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Scott County were on the road by 7:30 AM, 6 minutes later than in 2009 (7:24 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Scott County now leave 8 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 Scott County has moved 5 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Scott County in the whole series.

How does Scott County's commute time compare?

Metric	Scott County	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.2 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	19.7%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	0.7%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Scott County is 23.2 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 0.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau