Union County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Q: What is the financial impact of commuting in Union County, South Dakota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 137 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,238 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical South Dakota commuter spends.

Q: What are the busiest morning travel hours in Union County, South Dakota?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Union 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.

Q: How common is public transit use in Union County, South Dakota?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.0% of commuters use it versus 0.5% in South Dakota, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Q: Which counties in South Dakota have the fastest and slowest commutes?

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).

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Commuting in Union County, South Dakota: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 8:36 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Union County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:36 PM

Commute Time Burden in Union County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Union County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 137 hours, about 5.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the South Dakota average of 15.3 minutes each way, a difference of 1.1 minutes.

Union County holds about 1.9% of South Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 2.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Union County would save about 55 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,695 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)
Union County	16.4 min	32.8 min	137 hrs/yr	$4,238	643
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

Fastest commutes among counties in South Dakota

Jones County (6.7 min)
Bennett County (7.5 min)
Jackson County (7.8 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in South Dakota

Custer County (25.5 min)
McCook County (25.4 min)
Turner County (23.1 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Union County

Click a county to open it Explore the map →

Average commute time

On average, it takes 16.4 minutes to get to work in Union County. That's 27% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 74% of counties in South 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 7.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Union County

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

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

Commute Mode Trends in Union County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Union 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	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	92.5%	4.4%	1.6%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	92.1%	5.1%	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	91.7%	5.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	92.1%	5.2%	1.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	91.7%	5.3%	1.5%	0.9%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	91.9%	5.3%	1.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	92.9%	3.9%	2.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	92.3%	4.6%	2.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	92.1%	4.8%	2.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	92.7%	4.5%	2.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	92.7%	5.2%	1.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	92.0%	5.9%	0.9%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	90.9%	6.8%	1.0%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	89.8%	7.5%	0.9%	1.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	89.6%	7.5%	1.4%	1.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.4%	7.9%	1.3%	0.9%	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 2015 at 92.9%. Overall it fell from 92.5% in 2009 to 89.4% in 2024, down 3.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Union County: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 7.9% in 2024, up 3.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 2.7% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 1.3%.

Commute Start Times in Union County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Union County?

The bars show when commuters in Union 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		2.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		18.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		19.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		2.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		2.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Union County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.9% across South Dakota. Early starts are less common than in South Dakota: 9.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in South Dakota: 62.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.7% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (13.2%) 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 Union 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 Union 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 Union 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	Union County	South Dakota	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:33 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:34 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:25 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Union County were on the road by 7:31 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:36 AM). South Dakota followed the same path, with the typical start moving 5 minutes earlier. Commuters in Union County now leave 7 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 Union County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Union County's commute time compare?

Metric	Union County	South Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.4 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	7.9%	9.7%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	3.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Union County is 16.4 minutes, longer than the 15.3 minutes in South Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in South Dakota. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 3.1% in South Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Union County, SD Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Union County, SD is the 4th largest of the 6 counties compared here, 17,081 residents against a local median of 21,354. Nothing separates Union County, SD sharply from the counties around it. Each measure below lands within 15% of the local median, close enough that the differences are within what survey sampling alone would produce.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 14% below the local median at 7.9% against 9.2%. Union County, SD has the 4th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Union County, SD	17,081	16.4 min #4/6	7.9% #4/6	7:31 AM #5/6
Clay County, SD	15,219	11.1 min	6.6%	7:49 AM
Dixon County, NE	5,545	22.3 min	9.3%	7:14 AM
Dakota County, NE	21,354	13.1 min	4.9%	7:23 AM
Lincoln County, SD	70,639	18.1 min	12.3%	7:29 AM
Plymouth County, IA	25,747	16.0 min	9.2%	7:10 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Union County, South Dakota.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Union County, South Dakota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 137 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,238 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical South Dakota commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Union County, South Dakota?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Union 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 common is public transit use in Union County, South Dakota?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.0% of commuters use it versus 0.5% in South Dakota, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in South Dakota have the fastest and slowest commutes?

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).