Commuting in Brookings County, South Dakota: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.
You9/24/26, 8:24 PM
What does a typical morning commute look like in Brookings County?
Map AI9/24/26, 8:24 PM
Commute Time Burden in Brookings County: Annual Hours and Cost
Commuters in Brookings 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 99 hours, about 4.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% less time on the road than the South Dakota average of 15.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.5 minutes.
Brookings County holds about 3.9% of South Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 3.0% of its total commuting time.
Working from home just 2 days a week in Brookings County would save about 40 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,227 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)
Brookings County
11.9 min
23.8 min
99 hrs/yr
$3,068
508
South Dakota
15.3 min
30.7 min
128 hrs/yr
$3,961
353
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.
On average, it takes
11.9
minutes to get to work in
Brookings County.
That's 47% 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 11.1% work from home.
How People Get to Work in Brookings County
Car:
83.1%
Worked at Home:
11.1%
Walked:
3.9%
Bicycle:
0.9%unusually high
Public Transportation:
0.5%
Other:
0.3%
Motorcycle:
0.2%
Taxi:
< 0.1%unusually low
Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Brookings County, versus 0.1% in South Dakota.
Biking is unusually common in Brookings County: 3.1 times more than the South Dakota average (0.9% vs 0.3%).
Commute Mode Trends in Brookings County, 2009-2024
This chart shows how workers in Brookings 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
Bicycle
Public Transportation
Other
Motorcycle
Taxi
2009
84.2%
3.9%
8.7%
1.6%
0.7%
0.3%
0.6%
0.0%
2010
86.1%
3.4%
6.9%
1.6%
0.9%
0.4%
0.5%
0.3%
2011
84.7%
3.9%
7.7%
1.5%
0.9%
0.3%
0.4%
0.4%
2012
83.0%
4.1%
8.1%
2.8%
0.9%
0.3%
0.3%
0.5%
2013
84.0%
4.2%
7.6%
2.5%
0.7%
0.2%
0.4%
0.5%
2014
84.4%
4.8%
6.8%
2.6%
0.5%
0.2%
0.3%
0.5%
2015
84.9%
5.0%
6.6%
2.5%
0.4%
0.2%
0.3%
0.0%
2016
85.5%
4.8%
6.6%
2.2%
0.3%
0.2%
0.4%
0.0%
2017
86.2%
5.5%
5.8%
1.4%
0.4%
0.2%
0.4%
0.0%
2018
87.2%
5.4%
5.5%
1.1%
0.3%
0.2%
0.2%
0.0%
2019
88.4%
5.3%
4.8%
0.8%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.0%
2020
85.8%
8.7%
4.3%
0.8%
0.2%
0.1%
0.2%
0.0%
2021
86.0%
8.8%
3.2%
0.8%
0.5%
0.3%
0.4%
0.0%
2022
85.3%
9.9%
3.2%
0.6%
0.4%
0.3%
0.2%
0.0%
2023
83.7%
10.9%
3.4%
0.9%
0.6%
0.3%
0.3%
0.0%
2024
83.1%
11.1%
3.9%
0.9%
0.5%
0.3%
0.2%
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 88.4% and lowest in 2012 at 83.0%. Overall it fell from 84.2% in 2009 to 83.1% in 2024, down 1.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.
Working from home gained the most ground in Brookings County: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 11.1% in 2024, up 7.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.
Walking lost the most ground, falling from 8.7% to 3.9% of workers (down 4.8 percentage points).
Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2019 release and has stayed ahead since.
Biking peaked at 2.8% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 0.9%.
Commute Start Times in Brookings County
😴Sleeping InThe 2nd-highest share of 9 AM-or-later starts among South Dakota's 66 counties: 26.4% of commuters leave at 9 AM or later.
What Time Do People Leave for Work in Brookings County?
The bars show when commuters in Brookings 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 South Dakota for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.
Brookings CountySouth DakotaSource: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates
The busiest time to head out in Brookings County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.9% across South Dakota. Early starts are about as common as in South Dakota: 13.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Dakota: 50.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.7% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (26.4%) 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 Brookings 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 Brookings 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 Brookings County next to South 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.
Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.Show typical departure times by year
Year
Brookings County
South Dakota
United States
2009
7:53 AM
7:40 AM
7:37 AM
2010
7:51 AM
7:40 AM
7:38 AM
2011
7:48 AM
7:40 AM
7:38 AM
2012
7:48 AM
7:39 AM
7:38 AM
2013
7:46 AM
7:39 AM
7:39 AM
2014
7:48 AM
7:39 AM
7:39 AM
2015
7:48 AM
7:39 AM
7:38 AM
2016
7:49 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2017
7:49 AM
7:38 AM
7:38 AM
2018
7:48 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2019
7:48 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2020
7:44 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2021
7:44 AM
7:37 AM
7:37 AM
2022
7:45 AM
7:36 AM
7:37 AM
2023
7:46 AM
7:37 AM
7:38 AM
2024
7:44 AM
7:35 AM
7:38 AM
In 2024, half of commuters in Brookings County were on the road by 7:44 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:53 AM). The shift is sharper than across South Dakota, where the typical start moved 5 minutes earlier. Commuters in Brookings County now leave 6 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 Brookings County has moved 4 minutes earlier.
How does Brookings County's commute time compare?
Metric
Brookings County
South Dakota
US Average
Avg. Commute Time
11.9 min
15.3 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
11.1%
9.7%
15.0%
Walked
3.9%
3.1%
2.4%
Public Transit
0.5%
0.5%
3.2%
The average commute time in Brookings County is 11.9 minutes, shorter than the 15.3 minutes in South Dakota.
The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as South Dakota. 3.9% commute by walking, higher than the 3.1% in South Dakota.
Brookings County, SD Commute Compared With Nearby Counties
Brookings County, SD is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 35,353 residents against a local median of 6,373. The measure that sets Brookings County, SD apart most is one-way commute: 11.9 min, 35% below the local median of 18.4 min. That is the better end of the local range on this measure.
Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 11.1% against a local median of 9.5%, 16% above it. The counties themselves spread 10.4 min on one-way commute, so Brookings County, SD sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Brookings County, SD has the 3rd lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.
Common questions about commuting in Brookings County, South Dakota.
How much does the average commute cost workers in Brookings County, South Dakota?
Commuters here spend an estimated 99 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,068 at a typical national wage. That's 23% less than the typical South Dakota commuter spends.
When is rush hour worst in Brookings County, South Dakota?
Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Brookings County, South Dakota. 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 do commute times compare across counties in South Dakota?
Among counties in South Dakota, the shortest average commutes are in Jones County (6.7 min), Bennett County (7.5 min), Jackson County (7.8 min). The longest are in Custer County (25.5 min), McCook County (25.4 min), Turner County (23.1 min).