Wright County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Wright County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wright County spend about 58 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 240 hours, about 10.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 42% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 8.5 minutes.

Wright County holds about 2.6% of Minnesota's population but accounts for roughly 3.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Wright County would save about 96 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,979 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)
Wright County	28.8 min	57.6 min	240 hrs/yr	$7,446	1,607
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 28.8 minutes to get to work in Wright County. That's 29% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the 3 slowest 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 15.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wright County

• Car: 82.6%
• Worked at Home: 15.0%
• Other: 0.9%
• Walked: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Wright County: 5.6 times less than the Minnesota average (0.3% vs 1.8%).

Biking is unusually rare in Wright County: 6.4 times less than the Minnesota average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Wright County: just 0.9%, 3.2 times below the Minnesota average of 3.0%.

Commute Mode Trends in Wright County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.0%	5.1%	1.3%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2010	91.9%	5.2%	1.3%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%
2011	92.2%	5.2%	1.1%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	92.4%	4.9%	1.2%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2013	92.1%	4.7%	1.2%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2014	91.4%	4.9%	1.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.4%
2015	91.5%	4.8%	1.4%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2016	91.6%	4.6%	1.4%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2017	91.7%	4.7%	1.4%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	91.8%	4.8%	1.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	92.0%	5.1%	1.2%	0.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	91.0%	6.5%	1.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	88.2%	9.7%	1.0%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	86.6%	11.2%	1.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	85.1%	13.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	82.6%	15.0%	0.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	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 2012 at 92.4%. Overall it fell from 92.0% in 2009 to 82.6% in 2024, down 9.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wright County: its share of workers rose from 5.1% in 2009 to 15.0% in 2024, up 9.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Wright County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wright County?

The bars show when commuters in Wright 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 Wright County7.1% Minnesota5.0%	7.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Wright County6.3% Minnesota3.8%	6.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Wright County7.2% Minnesota5.2%	7.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Wright County11.1% Minnesota8.4%	11.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Wright County11.9% Minnesota10.2%	11.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Wright County16.7% Minnesota14.8%	16.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Wright County10.6% Minnesota13.8%	10.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Wright County8.3% Minnesota10.4%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Wright County3.2% Minnesota4.7%	3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Wright County3.1% Minnesota5.8%	3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Wright County2.2% Minnesota2.7%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Wright County1.1% Minnesota1.3%	1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Wright County6.5% Minnesota8.2%	6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Wright County4.7% Minnesota5.8%	4.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wright County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 20.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush looks much like Minnesota's: 47.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.5%) 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 Wright 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 Wright 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 Wright 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.

• Wright County
• Minnesota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Wright County	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:14 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:14 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:12 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:12 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:13 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:13 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:10 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:10 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:10 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:11 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wright County were on the road by 7:11 AM, 1 minute earlier than in 2009 (7:13 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Wright County now leave 26 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Wright County's commute time compare?

Metric	Wright County	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.8 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	15.0%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wright County is 28.8 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau