Howard Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Howard: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Howard spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 147 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 1.1 minutes.

Howard holds about 0.4% of Wisconsin's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Howard would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,820 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)
Howard	17.6 min	35.2 min	147 hrs/yr	$4,550	2,615
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.

Howard Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.6 minutes to get to work in Howard. That's 21% 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 14.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Howard

• Car: 85.0%
• Worked at Home: 14.2%
• Other: 0.3%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Walked: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Howard: 441557.1 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Walking is unusually rare in Howard: 48.6 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.1% vs 2.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Howard: 4514.7 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.0% vs 1.1%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Howard: just 0.3%, 11.8 times below the Wisconsin average of 3.1%.

Commute Mode Trends in Howard, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Howard 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
• Other
• Taxi
• Bicycle
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle
2009	95.1%	3.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%
2010	96.0%	2.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.5%	0.5%
2011	96.4%	2.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.5%	0.4%
2012	96.1%	2.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.6%	0.5%
2013	94.8%	2.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%
2014	94.8%	2.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.4%
2015	94.9%	3.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	95.6%	2.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	95.1%	3.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	95.6%	3.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	94.7%	4.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	94.3%	5.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.3%	7.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.3%	9.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	11.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.0%	14.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	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 peaked in 2011 at 96.4%. Overall it fell from 95.1% in 2009 to 85.0% in 2024, down 10.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Howard: its share of workers rose from 3.1% in 2009 to 14.2% in 2024, up 11.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 0.8% to 0.1% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Howard

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Howard?

The bars show when commuters in Howard 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	12:00-4:59 AM Howard4.5% Wisconsin6.9%	4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Howard1.4% Wisconsin4.7%	1.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Howard6.0% Wisconsin6.1%	6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Howard10.7% Wisconsin8.5%	10.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Howard10.8% Wisconsin10.4%	10.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Howard20.6% Wisconsin14.7%	20.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Howard15.0% Wisconsin12.7%	15.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Howard9.3% Wisconsin9.0%	9.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Howard2.4% Wisconsin4.0%	2.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Howard3.7% Wisconsin4.7%	3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Howard2.8% Wisconsin2.4%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Howard0.8% Wisconsin1.3%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Howard4.8% Wisconsin8.1%	4.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Howard7.1% Wisconsin6.4%	7.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Howard is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 20.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 11.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 55.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.2%) 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 Howard, 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 Howard 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 Howard 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.

• Howard
• Wisconsin
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Howard	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:25 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:22 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:22 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Howard were on the road by 7:24 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). The shift is sharper than across Wisconsin, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Howard now leave 14 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 Howard has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Howard's commute time compare?

Metric	Howard	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.6 min	18.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	14.2%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	< 0.1%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Howard is 17.6 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 0.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau