Dane County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Dane 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, 8:22 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Dane County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:22 PM

Commute Time Burden in Dane County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dane County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 167 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 1.3 minutes.

Dane County holds about 9.7% of Wisconsin's population but accounts for roughly 10.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dane County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,076 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)
Dane County	20.1 min	40.2 min	167 hrs/yr	$5,190	1,378
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

Dane County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 20.1 minutes to get to work in Dane County. That's 10% 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 20.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dane County

Biking is unusually common in Dane County: 3.6 times more than the Wisconsin average (1.7% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Dane County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Dane 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	82.9%	3.6%	5.9%	4.4%	2.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	82.8%	3.8%	5.4%	4.6%	2.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	82.4%	4.1%	5.4%	4.6%	2.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2012	82.2%	4.0%	5.3%	4.8%	2.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	81.3%	4.3%	5.6%	5.0%	3.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	81.0%	4.5%	5.7%	5.1%	3.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%
2015	80.9%	4.6%	5.6%	5.4%	2.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2016	80.7%	4.6%	5.7%	5.3%	2.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	80.6%	4.8%	5.6%	5.5%	2.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2018	80.9%	4.7%	5.6%	5.2%	2.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2019	81.0%	5.0%	5.4%	5.1%	2.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%
2020	78.3%	8.3%	5.5%	4.6%	2.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	75.4%	12.1%	5.4%	3.9%	2.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	72.9%	15.2%	5.4%	3.5%	2.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	71.0%	17.8%	5.2%	3.1%	1.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	69.4%	20.0%	4.9%	2.9%	1.7%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 82.9% in 2009 to 69.4% in 2024, down 13.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Dane County: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 20.0% in 2024, up 16.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 15.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 4.4% to 2.9% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Dane County

Night OwlThe latest start among Wisconsin's 72 counties: half of commuters are still at home at 7:48 AM.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dane County?

The bars show when commuters in Dane 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		3.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dane County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 9.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 54.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.8%) 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 Dane 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 Dane 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 Dane 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	Dane County	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:45 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:45 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:44 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:44 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dane County were on the road by 7:48 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:45 AM). That goes against the trend across Wisconsin, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Dane County now leave 10 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 Dane County has moved 4 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Dane County in the whole series.

How does Dane County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dane County	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 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	20.0%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	4.9%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	2.9%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dane County is 20.1 minutes, longer than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

2.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 4.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Dane County, WI Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Dane County, WI is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 572,416 residents against a local median of 66,009. Where Dane County, WI breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 91% above the local median of 10.5% at 20.0%.

The counties themselves sit within 3.3% of each other on work from home, a tighter band than the gap between any of them and Dane County, WI, which makes it a genuine outlier here rather than one end of a wide local spread. Dane County, WI has the highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Dane County, WI	572,416	20.1 min #3/6	20.0% #1/6	7:48 AM #6/6
Columbia County, WI	58,269	23.5 min	12.5%	7:11 AM
Green County, WI	37,017	20.3 min	11.9%	7:15 AM
Rock County, WI	164,349	19.0 min	9.2%	7:25 AM
Sauk County, WI	66,009	18.4 min	9.6%	7:24 AM
Jefferson County, WI	86,001	21.7 min	10.5%	7:18 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Is commuting expensive in Dane County, Wisconsin?

Commuters here spend an estimated 167 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,190 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical Wisconsin commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Dane County, Wisconsin?

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

Is Dane County, Wisconsin a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 20.0% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Dane County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,076 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Where are the quickest and slowest commutes among counties in Wisconsin?

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).