Pondera County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

Commuting in Pondera 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, 7:12 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Pondera County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 7:12 PM

Commute Time Burden in Pondera County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Pondera County spend about 24 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 100 hours, about 4.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.0 minutes.

Pondera County holds about 0.5% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Pondera County would save about 40 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,243 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)
Pondera County	12.0 min	24.1 min	100 hrs/yr	$3,107	97
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

Pondera County

Click a county to open it Explore the map →

Average commute time

On average, it takes 12.0 minutes to get to work in Pondera County. That's 46% 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 walking. About 9.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Pondera County

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Pondera County: 4.6 times more than the Montana average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Pondera County: 5.5 times less than the Montana average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

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

Commute Mode Trends in Pondera County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Pondera 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	Walked	Worked at Home	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	78.3%	12.9%	5.8%	0.6%	0.0%	2.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	78.2%	9.0%	10.1%	1.7%	0.0%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	76.2%	8.5%	11.8%	2.4%	0.0%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	79.8%	7.5%	11.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	79.4%	8.1%	10.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	80.4%	7.7%	10.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	82.1%	7.7%	8.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	84.0%	7.5%	7.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	81.3%	8.2%	9.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	78.8%	11.8%	8.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	82.5%	9.6%	7.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	81.8%	10.5%	6.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	83.1%	9.6%	6.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	78.4%	13.6%	7.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	80.2%	12.1%	5.5%	1.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	76.9%	11.0%	9.6%	1.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2016 at 84.0% and lowest in 2011 at 76.2%. Overall it fell from 78.3% in 2009 to 76.9% in 2024, down 1.4 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Pondera County: its share of workers rose from 5.8% in 2009 to 9.6% in 2024, up 3.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 12.9% to 11.0% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 11.8% in 2011 and has since fallen back to 9.6%.

Commute Start Times in Pondera County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Pondera County?

The bars show when commuters in Pondera 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		2.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		21.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		17.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		17.3%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Pondera County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 21.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.7% across Montana. Early starts are less common than in Montana: 9.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Montana: 63.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.8%) 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 Pondera 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 Pondera 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 Pondera 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	Pondera County	Montana	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:51 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:51 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:48 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:50 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:52 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:51 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:50 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:49 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:47 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:47 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:52 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Pondera County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:46 AM). The shift is sharper than across Montana, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Pondera County now leave 2 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 Pondera County has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Pondera County in the whole series.

How does Pondera County's commute time compare?

Metric	Pondera County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.0 min	16.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.6%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	11.0%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Pondera County is 12.0 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 11.0% commute by walking, higher than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Pondera County, MT Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Pondera County, MT is typical in size for this group, 6,035 residents against a local median of 6,353, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Where Pondera County, MT breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 33% below the local median of 14.5% at 9.6%.

The counties themselves spread 15.8% on work from home, so Pondera County, MT sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Pondera County, MT has the 6th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Pondera County, MT	6,035	12.0 min #2/6	9.6% #6/6	7:40 AM #2/6
Teton County, MT	6,353	16.2 min	15.1%	7:43 AM
Toole County, MT	5,058	10.8 min	10.6%	7:58 AM
Glacier County, MT	13,635	12.3 min	12.5%	7:49 AM
Lewis and Clark County, MT	73,430	16.2 min	14.5%	7:46 AM
Liberty County, MT	1,951	13.1 min	26.5%	7:32 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Pondera County, Montana.

Is commuting expensive in Pondera County, Montana?

Commuters here spend an estimated 100 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,107 at a typical national wage. That's 25% less than the typical Montana commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Pondera County, Montana. 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.

Do people use public transit in Pondera County, Montana?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.1% of commuters use it versus 0.6% in Montana, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in Montana have the fastest and slowest commutes?

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).