West St. Paul Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in West St. Paul, 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, 4:07 PM

How much time do drivers in West St. Paul spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:07 PM

Commute Time Burden in West St. Paul: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in West St. Paul spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 177 hours, about 7.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.9 minutes.

West St. Paul 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 West St. Paul would save about 71 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,189 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)
West St. Paul	21.2 min	42.4 min	177 hrs/yr	$5,472	2,342
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.

West St. Paul Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.2 minutes to get to work in West St. Paul. That's 5% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 19.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in West St. Paul

Biking is essentially absent in West St. Paul, versus 0.5% in Minnesota.

Commute Mode Trends in West St. Paul, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in West St. Paul 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	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	87.7%	2.4%	2.5%	6.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2010	88.6%	2.6%	2.2%	5.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.6%	0.2%
2011	88.6%	2.6%	2.6%	4.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.7%	0.2%
2012	86.7%	3.0%	2.6%	5.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.7%	0.2%
2013	85.9%	3.3%	2.2%	6.2%	1.1%	0.0%	0.9%	0.2%
2014	85.5%	4.4%	1.8%	5.3%	1.8%	0.0%	1.1%	0.2%
2015	84.8%	4.4%	1.7%	6.4%	1.7%	0.2%	0.6%	0.2%
2016	83.5%	4.7%	1.4%	7.5%	1.8%	0.1%	0.8%	0.2%
2017	85.4%	3.8%	1.8%	6.4%	1.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%
2018	84.5%	4.1%	1.5%	7.2%	1.7%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%
2019	84.1%	4.3%	1.8%	8.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2020	81.8%	7.5%	2.6%	6.4%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2021	78.4%	11.7%	2.9%	5.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	76.4%	14.9%	2.9%	5.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	77.0%	17.5%	2.6%	2.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	75.5%	19.6%	2.1%	1.3%	0.9%	0.5%	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 2010 at 88.6%. Overall it fell from 87.7% in 2009 to 75.5% in 2024, down 12.2 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in West St. Paul: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 19.6% in 2024, up 17.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 15.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.1% to 1.3% of workers (down 4.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2012 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in West St. Paul

What Time Do People Leave for Work in West St. Paul?

The bars show when commuters in West St. Paul 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		4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		5.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.5%

West St. Paul Minnesota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in West St. Paul is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are less common than in Minnesota: 11.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Minnesota: 42.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (30.6%) 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 West St. Paul, 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 West St. Paul 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 West St. Paul 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	West St. Paul	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:40 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:39 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:34 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:34 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:49 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in West St. Paul were on the road by 7:43 AM, 8 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in West St. Paul now leave 5 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in West St. Paul has moved 15 minutes later.

How does West St. Paul's commute time compare?

Metric	West St. Paul	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.2 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	19.6%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in West St. Paul is 21.2 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 2.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

West St. Paul, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How West St. Paul, MN compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
West St. Paul, MN	21,361	21.2 min #3/3	19.6% #2/3	7:43 AM #2/3
South St. Paul, MN	21,076	20.7 min	14.7%	7:25 AM
St. Paul, MN	307,141	20.1 min	20.2%	8:02 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in West St. Paul, Minnesota.

Is living in West St. Paul, Minnesota good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 177 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,472 at a typical national wage. That's 4% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in West St. Paul, Minnesota?

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