Ashland County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 8:04 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Ashland County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:04 PM

Commute Time Burden in Ashland County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Ashland County spend about 26 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 106 hours, about 4.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 32% less time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 6.0 minutes.

Ashland County holds about 0.3% of Wisconsin's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Ashland County would save about 43 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,318 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)
Ashland County	12.8 min	25.5 min	106 hrs/yr	$3,296	222
Wisconsin	18.8 min	37.5 min	156 hrs/yr	$4,846	811
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: Wisconsin Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Wisconsin

Ashland County (12.8 min)
Door County (13.6 min)
Eau Claire County (15.3 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Wisconsin

Oconto County (26.4 min)
St. Croix County (25.3 min)
Waushara County (23.9 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Ashland County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 12.8 minutes to get to work in Ashland County. That's 43% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Fastest county in Wisconsin

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 9.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Ashland County

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Ashland County: 4.0 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Ashland County, versus 0.2% in Wisconsin.

Commute Mode Trends in Ashland County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Ashland 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	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	81.6%	5.4%	11.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	82.7%	4.4%	10.5%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	82.8%	4.3%	9.9%	1.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%
2012	84.3%	4.8%	7.6%	1.2%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.6%
2013	85.1%	4.9%	7.2%	1.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	86.4%	5.0%	5.9%	1.0%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	85.2%	4.7%	7.9%	0.5%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	84.9%	4.9%	8.2%	0.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	84.7%	4.4%	8.4%	1.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	83.7%	3.7%	9.2%	1.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	82.6%	3.8%	9.5%	2.2%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	83.9%	4.8%	7.8%	1.6%	0.8%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	82.8%	5.5%	7.2%	1.8%	0.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	81.2%	7.2%	7.6%	1.9%	1.0%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.6%	8.5%	6.3%	1.7%	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	81.1%	9.7%	6.4%	1.1%	1.0%	0.7%	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 2014 at 86.4%. Overall it fell from 81.6% in 2009 to 81.1% in 2024, down 0.5 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Ashland County: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 9.7% in 2024, up 4.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 11.1% to 6.4% of workers (down 4.7 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 2.2% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 1.1%.

Commute Start Times in Ashland County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Ashland County?

The bars show when commuters in Ashland 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 Wisconsin for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.4%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		19.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		12.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.0%

Ashland County Wisconsin Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Ashland County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 14.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 49.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.2%) 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 Ashland 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 Ashland 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 Ashland County next to Wisconsin 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	Ashland County	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:37 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:40 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:45 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:34 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Ashland County were on the road by 7:37 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:44 AM). The shift is sharper than across Wisconsin, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Ashland County now leave 1 minute 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 Ashland County has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Ashland County's commute time compare?

Metric	Ashland County	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.8 min	18.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.7%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	6.4%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.1%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Ashland County is 12.8 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Wisconsin. 6.4% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Ashland County, WI Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Ashland County, WI is typical in size for this group, 16,080 residents against a local median of 14,317, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. Where Ashland County, WI breaks from the counties next to it is one-way commute, sitting 23% below the local median of 16.6 min at 12.8 min. That is the better end of the local range on this measure.

Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 9.7% against a local median of 7.9%, 22% above it. The counties themselves spread 6.1 min on one-way commute, so Ashland County, WI sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Ashland County, WI has the 2nd lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Ashland County, WI	16,080	12.8 min #2/6	9.7% #3/6	7:36 AM #5/6
Iron County, WI	6,210	16.3 min	6.8%	7:15 AM
Bayfield County, WI	16,575	18.7 min	13.4%	7:37 AM
Gogebic County, MI	14,317	12.6 min	7.5%	7:20 AM
Sawyer County, WI	18,476	16.6 min	12.7%	7:34 AM
Price County, WI	14,089	17.7 min	7.9%	7:09 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Ashland County, Wisconsin.

Is living in Ashland County, Wisconsin good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 106 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,296 at a typical national wage. That's 32% less than the typical Wisconsin commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Ashland County, Wisconsin?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Ashland County, Wisconsin. 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.

Which counties in Wisconsin have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Wisconsin, the shortest average commutes are in Ashland County (12.8 min), Door County (13.6 min), Eau Claire County (15.3 min). The longest are in Oconto County (26.4 min), St. Croix County (25.3 min), Waushara County (23.9 min).