McCook County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in McCook County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in McCook County spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 211 hours, about 8.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 65% more time on the road than the South Dakota average of 15.3 minutes each way, a difference of 10.0 minutes.

McCook County holds about 0.6% of South Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in McCook County would save about 85 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,621 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)
McCook County	25.4 min	50.7 min	211 hrs/yr	$6,553	337
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 25.4 minutes to get to work in McCook County. That's 13% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the 3 slowest counties in South Dakota

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in McCook County

• Car: 85.1%
• Worked at Home: 11.2%
• Walked: 3.2%
• Other: 0.2%
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in McCook County, versus 0.2% in South Dakota.

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

Biking is unusually rare in McCook County: 4.5 times less than the South Dakota average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in McCook County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle
2009	82.7%	11.7%	5.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	80.9%	12.3%	5.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2011	81.3%	12.3%	5.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2012	80.8%	13.4%	5.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%
2013	81.4%	12.6%	5.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	81.1%	13.1%	4.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.5%
2015	83.1%	12.5%	3.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	85.9%	9.2%	3.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.8%	0.0%
2017	87.3%	7.8%	3.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.8%	0.0%
2018	85.7%	8.3%	4.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.9%	0.0%
2019	85.8%	8.5%	5.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	85.0%	8.9%	5.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	86.6%	8.7%	4.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	86.1%	9.3%	3.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	85.9%	10.7%	3.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.1%	11.2%	3.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2017 at 87.3% and lowest in 2012 at 80.8%. Overall it rose from 82.7% in 2009 to 85.1% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.3% to 3.2% of workers (down 2.1 percentage points).

Working from home peaked at 13.4% in 2012 and has since fallen back to 11.2%.

Commute Start Times in McCook County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in McCook County?

The bars show when commuters in McCook 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 McCook County8.6% South Dakota4.1%	8.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM McCook County3.3% South Dakota3.1%	3.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM McCook County4.9% South Dakota5.1%	4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM McCook County13.6% South Dakota6.9%	13.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM McCook County10.3% South Dakota11.3%	10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM McCook County20.6% South Dakota16.2%	20.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM McCook County10.8% South Dakota19.9%	10.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM McCook County11.9% South Dakota10.2%	11.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM McCook County3.5% South Dakota3.7%	3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM McCook County2.6% South Dakota4.3%	2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM McCook County1.5% South Dakota2.0%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM McCook County0.5% South Dakota1.4%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM McCook County5.2% South Dakota6.1%	5.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM McCook County2.7% South Dakota5.8%	2.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in McCook County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 20.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.2% across South Dakota. Early starts are more common than in South Dakota: 16.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in South Dakota: 53.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.7% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (12.5%) 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 McCook 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 McCook 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 McCook 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.

• McCook County
• South Dakota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	McCook County	South Dakota	United States
2009	7:23 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:22 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:25 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:25 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:25 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:20 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:15 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in McCook County were on the road by 7:14 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:23 AM). The shift is sharper than across South Dakota, where the typical start moved 5 minutes earlier. Commuters in McCook County now leave 24 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 McCook County has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for McCook County in the whole series.

How does McCook County's commute time compare?

Metric	McCook County	South Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.4 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.2%	9.7%	15.0%
Walked	3.2%	3.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in McCook County is 25.4 minutes, longer than the 15.3 minutes in South Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in South Dakota. 3.2% commute by walking, higher than the 3.1% in South Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau