Morton County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Morton County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Morton 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 141 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% more time on the road than the North Dakota average of 13.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Morton County holds about 4.3% of North Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 5.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Morton County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,752 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)
Morton County	17.0 min	33.9 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,379	733
North Dakota	13.8 min	27.6 min	115 hrs/yr	$3,567	360
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: North Dakota Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.0 minutes to get to work in Morton County. That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 85% of counties in North Dakota

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 10.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Morton County

• Car: 87.4%
• Worked at Home: 10.6%
• Walked: 1.0% unusually low
• Other: 0.6%
• Motorcycle: 0.3%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually rare in Morton County: 3.2 times less than the North Dakota average (1.0% vs 3.2%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Morton County: 12.4 times less than the North Dakota average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Morton County, versus 0.1% in North Dakota.

Commute Mode Trends in Morton County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Morton 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
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	91.1%	4.4%	3.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	91.1%	4.6%	3.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	92.0%	4.7%	2.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	92.1%	4.6%	2.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	92.4%	5.0%	1.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	93.2%	4.9%	1.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	92.7%	5.1%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	93.0%	4.7%	1.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	92.7%	5.1%	1.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	91.8%	5.8%	1.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.0%	5.7%	1.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	93.1%	5.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	91.9%	6.3%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	91.3%	7.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.9%	8.2%	0.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.4%	10.6%	1.0%	0.6%	0.3%	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 2014 at 93.2%. Overall it fell from 91.1% in 2009 to 87.4% in 2024, down 3.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Morton County: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 10.6% in 2024, up 6.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.3% to 1.0% of workers (down 2.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Morton County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Morton County?

The bars show when commuters in Morton 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 North Dakota for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Morton County4.0% North Dakota3.6%	4.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Morton County4.2% North Dakota2.7%	4.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Morton County3.8% North Dakota4.4%	3.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Morton County4.9% North Dakota6.7%	4.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Morton County9.1% North Dakota11.2%	9.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Morton County17.1% North Dakota14.8%	17.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Morton County21.1% North Dakota20.9%	21.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Morton County10.4% North Dakota11.0%	10.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Morton County7.5% North Dakota4.7%	7.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Morton County5.2% North Dakota4.5%	5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Morton County1.1% North Dakota2.3%	1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Morton County1.0% North Dakota1.0%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Morton County5.9% North Dakota6.4%	5.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Morton County4.7% North Dakota5.9%	4.7%

Morton County North Dakota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Morton County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 21.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 20.9% across North Dakota. Early starts are more common than in North Dakota: 12.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush looks much like North Dakota's: 57.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.9% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.9%) 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 Morton 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 Morton 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 Morton County next to North Dakota 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.

• Morton County
• North Dakota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Morton County	North Dakota	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:40 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:39 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:39 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:34 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:40 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:40 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Morton County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (7:35 AM). That goes against the trend across North Dakota, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Morton 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 Morton County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Morton County's commute time compare?

Metric	Morton County	North Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.0 min	13.8 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	10.6%	8.1%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	3.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Morton County is 17.0 minutes, longer than the 13.8 minutes in North Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in North Dakota. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 3.2% in North Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau