Sweet Grass County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Sweet Grass County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sweet Grass County spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 128 hours, about 5.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Sweet Grass County holds about 0.3% of Montana's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sweet Grass County would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,586 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)
Sweet Grass County	15.4 min	30.7 min	128 hrs/yr	$3,966	101
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

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 15.4 minutes to get to work in Sweet Grass County. That's 32% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 16.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sweet Grass County

• Car: 76.0%
• Worked at Home: 16.0%
• Walked: 4.4%
• Public Transportation: 1.8%
• Other: 1.8%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

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

Biking is unusually rare in Sweet Grass County: 198121.7 times less than the Montana average (0.0% vs 1.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Sweet Grass County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sweet Grass 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
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	61.7%	20.2%	9.1%	7.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	70.1%	15.8%	7.3%	6.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	70.6%	13.9%	11.2%	2.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2012	73.0%	13.7%	8.1%	2.9%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%	1.1%
2013	72.0%	11.5%	10.2%	3.6%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%	1.0%
2014	72.3%	11.5%	9.3%	4.8%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2015	73.3%	11.4%	7.7%	5.4%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.6%
2016	73.6%	9.6%	6.4%	7.8%	1.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2017	71.9%	11.4%	7.4%	7.6%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	76.3%	9.9%	5.6%	6.6%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2019	75.3%	10.0%	6.6%	5.9%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2020	81.0%	8.5%	4.7%	4.0%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	82.5%	8.0%	5.2%	2.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2022	83.3%	8.5%	4.2%	2.6%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2023	79.9%	13.1%	3.4%	2.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	76.0%	16.0%	4.4%	1.8%	1.8%	0.0%	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 2022 at 83.3%. Overall it rose from 61.7% in 2009 to 76.0% in 2024, up 14.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 7.9% to 1.8% of workers (down 6.1 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 11.2% in 2011 and has since fallen back to 4.4%.

Commute Start Times in Sweet Grass County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sweet Grass County?

The bars show when commuters in Sweet Grass 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	12:00-4:59 AM Sweet Grass County6.8% Montana4.0%	6.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Sweet Grass County3.2% Montana2.7%	3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Sweet Grass County9.7% Montana4.0%	9.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Sweet Grass County6.1% Montana6.7%	6.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Sweet Grass County9.6% Montana10.3%	9.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Sweet Grass County17.3% Montana13.7%	17.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Sweet Grass County19.2% Montana19.2%	19.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Sweet Grass County7.6% Montana11.7%	7.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Sweet Grass County3.4% Montana5.7%	3.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Sweet Grass County4.0% Montana6.3%	4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Sweet Grass County5.5% Montana3.3%	5.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Sweet Grass County2.3% Montana1.5%	2.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Sweet Grass County3.9% Montana5.7%	3.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Sweet Grass County1.5% Montana5.2%	1.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Sweet Grass County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are more common than in Montana: 19.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Montana's: 53.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.2%) 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 Sweet Grass 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 Sweet Grass 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 Sweet Grass 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.

• Sweet Grass County
• Montana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Sweet Grass County	Montana	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:34 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:36 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:28 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sweet Grass County were on the road by 7:26 AM, 12 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:38 AM). The shift is sharper than across Montana, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Sweet Grass County now leave 12 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Sweet Grass County has moved 12 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Sweet Grass County in the whole series.

How does Sweet Grass County's commute time compare?

Metric	Sweet Grass County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.4 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	16.0%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	4.4%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.8%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Sweet Grass County is 15.4 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

1.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.6% in Montana. 4.4% commute by walking, higher than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau