Watonwan County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Watonwan 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, 8:02 PM

How much time do drivers in Watonwan County spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:02 PM

Commute Time Burden in Watonwan County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Watonwan County spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 145 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.9 minutes.

Watonwan County holds about 0.2% of Minnesota's population and accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Watonwan County would save about 58 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,801 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)
Watonwan County	17.4 min	34.9 min	145 hrs/yr	$4,503	286
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

Watonwan County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 17.4 minutes to get to work in Watonwan County. That's 22% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Watonwan County

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Watonwan County, versus 0.1% in Minnesota.

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Watonwan County: 2082504.5 times less than the Minnesota average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Watonwan County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Watonwan 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	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	87.0%	4.6%	5.6%	1.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.6%
2010	86.2%	4.3%	6.4%	1.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%
2011	86.9%	4.3%	5.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2012	89.0%	4.7%	4.4%	1.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	89.5%	5.0%	4.2%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	88.8%	5.2%	4.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	87.5%	6.3%	4.7%	0.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	86.5%	7.2%	4.9%	0.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	85.0%	6.7%	6.7%	0.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	84.6%	6.3%	7.3%	0.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	86.3%	5.7%	5.8%	1.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.8%	3.3%	6.8%	1.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	87.2%	3.5%	7.1%	1.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	87.2%	4.2%	6.4%	1.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	86.2%	6.8%	4.4%	1.8%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	84.1%	8.1%	4.4%	1.3%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	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 89.5%. Overall it fell from 87.0% in 2009 to 84.1% in 2024, down 2.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Watonwan County: its share of workers rose from 4.6% in 2009 to 8.1% in 2024, up 3.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.6% to 4.4% of workers (down 1.2 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Watonwan County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Watonwan County?

The bars show when commuters in Watonwan 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		5.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		8.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		17.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Watonwan County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 17.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 19.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Minnesota's: 50.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (15.6%) 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 Watonwan 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 Watonwan 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 Watonwan 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	Watonwan County	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:36 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:25 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:24 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Watonwan County were on the road by 7:20 AM, 17 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:37 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Watonwan County now leave 18 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 Watonwan County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Watonwan County's commute time compare?

Metric	Watonwan County	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.4 min	20.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.1%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	4.4%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Watonwan County is 17.4 minutes, shorter than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 4.4% commute by walking, higher than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Watonwan County, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Watonwan County, MN is the smallest of the 6 counties compared here, 11,205 residents against a local median of 25,800. Where Watonwan County, MN breaks from the counties next to it is one-way commute, sitting 37% above the local median of 12.7 min at 17.4 min. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

The counties themselves sit within 3.1 min of each other on one-way commute, a tighter band than the gap between any of them and Watonwan County, MN, which makes it a genuine outlier here rather than one end of a wide local spread. Watonwan County, MN has the 6th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Watonwan County, MN	11,205	17.4 min #6/6	8.1% #4/6	7:20 AM #1/6
Brown County, MN	25,800	10.6 min	7.3%	7:24 AM
Martin County, MN	19,780	12.7 min	7.9%	7:28 AM
Nicollet County, MN	34,262	13.5 min	13.4%	7:35 AM
Blue Earth County, MN	69,837	13.6 min	8.5%	7:42 AM
Cottonwood County, MN	11,447	10.9 min	10.7%	7:27 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Watonwan County, Minnesota.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Watonwan County, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 145 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,503 at a typical national wage. That's 14% less than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Watonwan County, Minnesota?

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

Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among 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).