Butte-Silver Bow (balance) Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:09 PM

Is the commute in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:09 PM

Commute Time Burden in Butte-Silver Bow (balance): Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) spend about 26 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 108 hours, about 4.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 19% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Butte-Silver Bow (balance) holds about 3.2% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 2.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) would save about 43 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,342 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)
Butte-Silver Bow (balance)	13.0 min	26.0 min	108 hrs/yr	$3,354	1,199
Montana	16.0 min	32.1 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,143	403
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.

Butte-Silver Bow (balance) Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.0 minutes to get to work in Butte-Silver Bow (balance). That's 42% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Butte-Silver Bow (balance)

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), versus 0.1% in Montana.

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Butte-Silver Bow (balance): 4.2 times more than the Montana average (0.2% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually rare in Butte-Silver Bow (balance): 81.8 times less than the Montana average (0.0% vs 1.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) 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	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	89.4%	3.3%	4.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	89.6%	3.3%	4.5%	1.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	90.6%	2.9%	4.2%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	90.5%	3.0%	4.1%	1.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2013	91.1%	2.6%	3.6%	2.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	90.5%	3.2%	3.3%	2.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%
2015	90.3%	3.5%	2.8%	2.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.6%
2016	90.9%	3.2%	2.6%	1.9%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%
2017	90.9%	2.9%	2.6%	2.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%
2018	90.3%	3.3%	3.5%	1.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2019	91.5%	2.4%	3.7%	0.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	90.5%	3.6%	3.3%	1.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	88.4%	5.3%	3.1%	2.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	88.5%	6.4%	2.6%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	87.9%	7.1%	2.7%	1.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.4%	7.6%	2.5%	1.5%	0.7%	0.2%	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 2019 at 91.5%. Overall it fell from 89.4% in 2009 to 87.4% in 2024, down 2.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Butte-Silver Bow (balance): its share of workers rose from 3.3% in 2009 to 7.6% in 2024, up 4.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.4% to 2.5% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Butte-Silver Bow (balance)

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Butte-Silver Bow (balance)?

The bars show when commuters in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) 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 Montana for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		5.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.3%
6:00-6:29 AM		3.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		9.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		25.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.7%

Butte-Silver Bow (balance) Montana Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 25.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are about as common as in Montana: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Montana: 52.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.8%) 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 Butte-Silver Bow (balance), 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 Butte-Silver Bow (balance) 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 Butte-Silver Bow (balance) next to Montana 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	Butte-Silver Bow (balance)	Montana	United States
2009	7:58 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:02 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:06 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:57 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:54 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:50 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:48 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:48 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:52 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:55 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:53 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:54 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:52 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:49 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:51 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) were on the road by 7:51 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:58 AM). The shift is sharper than across Montana, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) now leave 13 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 Butte-Silver Bow (balance) has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Butte-Silver Bow (balance)'s commute time compare?

Metric	Butte-Silver Bow (balance)	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.0 min	16.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.6%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.5%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Butte-Silver Bow (balance) is 13.0 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.7% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.6% in Montana. 2.5% commute by walking, lower than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana.

Is commuting expensive in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana?

Commuters here spend an estimated 108 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,354 at a typical national wage. That's 19% less than the typical Montana commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana. 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.