Lake County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Lake County, 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, 8:33 PM

Is the commute in Lake County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:33 PM

Commute Time Burden in Lake County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Lake County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 143 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.1 minutes.

Lake County holds about 2.9% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 3.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Lake County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,767 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)
Lake County	17.1 min	34.2 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,419	407
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.

Commute Time Map: Montana Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Montana

Treasure County (7.2 min)
Rosebud County (8.2 min)
Fallon County (8.4 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Montana

Broadwater County (30.3 min)
Stillwater County (27.8 min)
Granite County (23.3 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Lake County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 17.1 minutes to get to work in Lake County. That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 80% of counties in Montana

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 13.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Lake County

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.1% in Montana.

Public transit is unusually rare in Lake County: 3.3 times less than the Montana average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Lake County, versus 0.1% in Montana.

Commute Mode Trends in Lake County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Lake 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	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	83.0%	9.1%	5.7%	1.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	84.0%	9.7%	4.3%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	82.3%	10.1%	5.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	81.7%	10.9%	5.9%	0.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	82.7%	10.3%	5.1%	0.5%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	81.5%	11.4%	5.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	82.0%	11.0%	5.0%	0.4%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	81.6%	10.8%	4.6%	0.6%	0.7%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	83.2%	9.7%	4.6%	0.7%	0.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	84.3%	8.9%	4.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	85.2%	7.9%	5.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	84.6%	8.4%	5.2%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	84.5%	8.9%	4.6%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	83.2%	10.0%	4.9%	1.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	83.3%	11.1%	3.6%	1.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	81.9%	13.2%	2.9%	1.2%	0.6%	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 was highest in 2019 at 85.2% and lowest in 2014 at 81.5%. Overall it fell from 83.0% in 2009 to 81.9% in 2024, down 1.1 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Lake County: its share of workers rose from 9.1% in 2009 to 13.2% in 2024, up 4.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.7% to 2.9% of workers (down 2.8 percentage points).

Public transit peaked at 1.5% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 0.2%.

Commute Start Times in Lake County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Lake County?

The bars show when commuters in Lake 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 Montana for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.3%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		15.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

Lake County Montana Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Lake County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 15.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are about as common as in Montana: 10.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Montana's: 54.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.8%) 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 Lake 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 Lake 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 Lake County 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	Lake County	Montana	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:43 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:48 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Lake County were on the road by 7:42 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:44 AM). Montana followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Lake County now leave 4 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 Lake County has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Lake County's commute time compare?

Metric	Lake County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.1 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	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.2%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Lake County is 17.1 minutes, longer than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 2.9% commute by walking, lower than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Lake County, MT Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Lake County, MT is the 3rd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 32,553 residents against a local median of 13,282. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest counties, which makes Lake County, MT an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 9% below the local median at 13.2% against 14.6%. Lake County, MT has the 4th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Lake County, MT	32,553	17.1 min #4/6	13.2% #4/6	7:42 AM #3/6
Missoula County, MT	120,671	16.1 min	14.6%	7:57 AM
Flathead County, MT	110,697	17.7 min	15.8%	7:46 AM
Mineral County, MT	4,955	20.5 min	9.9%	7:24 AM
Sanders County, MT	13,282	12.9 min	15.2%	7:16 AM
Powell County, MT	7,053	12.1 min	9.4%	7:53 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Lake County, Montana.

Is commuting expensive in Lake County, Montana?

Commuters here spend an estimated 143 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,419 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical Montana commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Lake County, Montana?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Lake County, Montana. 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.

How common is public transit use in Lake County, Montana?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.6% in Montana, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

How do commute times compare across counties in Montana?

Among counties in Montana, the shortest average commutes are in Treasure County (7.2 min), Rosebud County (8.2 min), Fallon County (8.4 min). The longest are in Broadwater County (30.3 min), Stillwater County (27.8 min), Granite County (23.3 min).