Mountrail County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Mountrail County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Mountrail County spend about 30 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 127 hours, about 5.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% more time on the road than the North Dakota average of 13.8 minutes each way, a difference of 1.4 minutes.

Mountrail County holds about 1.2% of North Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Mountrail County would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,572 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)
Mountrail County	15.2 min	30.4 min	127 hrs/yr	$3,930	372
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 15.2 minutes to get to work in Mountrail County. That's 32% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 73% of counties in North Dakota

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 4.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Mountrail County

• Car: 91.3%
• Worked at Home: 4.6%
• Walked: 3.9%
• Other: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Mountrail County, versus 0.2% in North Dakota.

Public transit is essentially absent in Mountrail County, versus 0.3% in North Dakota.

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

Biking is essentially absent in Mountrail County, versus 0.3% in North Dakota.

Commute Mode Trends in Mountrail County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	84.7%	9.8%	4.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	84.8%	10.5%	4.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	84.0%	10.3%	4.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	84.3%	9.9%	4.4%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	86.8%	7.3%	4.4%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	85.1%	8.2%	5.1%	1.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	87.6%	6.3%	4.3%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	87.1%	8.2%	3.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	86.1%	7.3%	5.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	84.3%	8.5%	6.0%	0.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	88.2%	5.2%	5.1%	0.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	85.6%	6.2%	6.7%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	86.9%	3.8%	7.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	88.7%	5.2%	5.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	91.0%	4.5%	3.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.3%	4.6%	3.9%	0.2%	0.0%	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 bottomed out in 2011 at 84.0%. Overall it rose from 84.7% in 2009 to 91.3% in 2024, up 6.6 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 9.8% to 4.6% of workers (down 5.2 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 7.8% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 3.9%.

Commute Start Times in Mountrail County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Mountrail County?

The bars show when commuters in Mountrail 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 Mountrail County2.8% North Dakota3.6%	2.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Mountrail County4.1% North Dakota2.7%	4.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Mountrail County2.9% North Dakota4.4%	2.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Mountrail County6.8% North Dakota6.7%	6.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Mountrail County9.9% North Dakota11.2%	9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Mountrail County11.5% North Dakota14.8%	11.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Mountrail County18.7% North Dakota20.9%	18.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Mountrail County11.6% North Dakota11.0%	11.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Mountrail County8.0% North Dakota4.7%	8.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Mountrail County5.8% North Dakota4.5%	5.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Mountrail County1.5% North Dakota2.3%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Mountrail County1.5% North Dakota1.0%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Mountrail County5.1% North Dakota6.4%	5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Mountrail County9.6% North Dakota5.9%	9.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Mountrail County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 18.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 20.9% across North Dakota. Early starts are about as common as in North Dakota: 9.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in North Dakota: 51.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.9% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.6%) 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 Mountrail 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 Mountrail 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 Mountrail 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.

• Mountrail County
• North Dakota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Mountrail County	North Dakota	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:47 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:42 AM	7:40 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:44 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:43 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:49 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:49 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Mountrail County were on the road by 7:49 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:46 AM). That goes against the trend across North Dakota, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Mountrail County now leave 11 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 Mountrail County has moved 8 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Mountrail County in the whole series.

How does Mountrail County's commute time compare?

Metric	Mountrail County	North Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.2 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.6%	8.1%	15.0%
Walked	3.9%	3.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Mountrail County is 15.2 minutes, longer than the 13.8 minutes in North Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in North Dakota. 3.9% commute by walking, higher than the 3.2% in North Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau