Harding County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Harding County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Harding County spend about 23 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 96 hours, about 4.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 25% less time on the road than the South Dakota average of 15.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.8 minutes.

Harding County holds about 0.1% of South Dakota's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Harding County would save about 38 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,191 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)
Harding County	11.5 min	23.1 min	96 hrs/yr	$2,979	41
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.

Commute Time Map: South Dakota Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 11.5 minutes to get to work in Harding County. That's 49% 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 working from home. About 16.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Harding County

• Car: 69.0%
• Worked at Home: 16.4%
• Walked: 11.7% unusually high
• Other: 2.8%
• 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 Harding County, versus 0.2% in South Dakota.

Walking is unusually common in Harding County: 3.8 times more than the South Dakota average (11.7% vs 3.1%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Harding County, versus 0.5% in South Dakota.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Harding County, versus 0.1% in South Dakota.

Biking is essentially absent in Harding County, versus 0.3% in South Dakota.

Harding County stands out for active commuting: 11.7% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.4 times the South Dakota average of 3.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Harding County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Harding 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	57.4%	21.6%	19.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2010	49.4%	28.1%	21.1%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2011	50.4%	26.8%	21.5%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	50.8%	28.4%	19.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%	0.0%
2013	51.6%	30.9%	16.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	56.5%	30.9%	12.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	62.9%	29.4%	6.5%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	57.1%	33.2%	8.1%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	63.8%	27.2%	8.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	64.0%	26.2%	9.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	57.8%	34.1%	6.4%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	51.0%	36.7%	11.4%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	55.3%	32.8%	11.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	59.5%	29.2%	10.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	64.7%	22.7%	11.2%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	69.0%	16.4%	11.7%	2.8%	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 2010 at 49.4%. Overall it rose from 57.4% in 2009 to 69.0% in 2024, up 11.6 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 4 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 19.3% to 11.7% of workers (down 7.6 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 36.7% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 16.4%.

Commute Start Times in Harding County

• 🐦 Early BirdThe 2nd-earliest start among South Dakota's 66 counties: half of commuters are on the road by 7:07 AM.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Harding County?

The bars show when commuters in Harding 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.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Harding County10.4% South Dakota4.1%	10.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Harding County5.6% South Dakota3.1%	5.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Harding County3.5% South Dakota5.1%	3.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Harding County9.5% South Dakota6.9%	9.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Harding County16.3% South Dakota11.3%	16.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Harding County20.0% South Dakota16.2%	20.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Harding County16.7% South Dakota19.9%	16.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Harding County11.1% South Dakota10.2%	11.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Harding County2.1% South Dakota3.7%	2.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Harding County2.6% South Dakota4.3%	2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Harding County0.4% South Dakota2.0%	0.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Harding County0.2% South Dakota1.4%	0.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Harding County1.6% South Dakota6.1%	1.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Harding County0.0% South Dakota5.8%	0.0%

Harding County South Dakota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Harding County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 20.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.2% across South Dakota. Early starts are more common than in South Dakota: 19.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in South Dakota: 64.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.7% there. About 1 in 21 commuters (4.7%) 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 Harding 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 Harding 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 Harding 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.

• Harding County
• South Dakota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Harding County	South Dakota	United States
2009	7:14 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:17 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:16 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:13 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:16 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:04 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:07 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Harding County were on the road by 7:07 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:14 AM). South Dakota followed the same path, with the typical start moving 5 minutes earlier. Commuters in Harding County now leave 31 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 Harding County has moved 6 minutes earlier.

How does Harding County's commute time compare?

Metric	Harding County	South Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.5 min	15.3 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	16.4%	9.7%	15.0%
Walked	11.7%	3.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Harding County is 11.5 minutes, shorter than the 15.3 minutes in South Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in South Dakota. 11.7% commute by walking, higher than the 3.1% in South Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau