Jefferson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Jefferson 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, 8:23 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:23 PM

Commute Time Burden in Jefferson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jefferson County spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 181 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% more time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 3.0 minutes.

Jefferson County holds about 1.5% of Wisconsin's population but accounts for roughly 1.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jefferson County would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,245 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)
Jefferson County	21.7 min	43.5 min	181 hrs/yr	$5,613	885
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

Jefferson County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 21.7 minutes to get to work in Jefferson County. That's 3% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 77% of counties in Wisconsin

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Jefferson County

Public transit is unusually rare in Jefferson County: 3.0 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.4% vs 1.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Jefferson County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Jefferson 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	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	90.7%	3.8%	3.4%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.4%
2010	90.8%	3.8%	3.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%
2011	91.0%	3.8%	3.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.5%	0.3%
2012	91.1%	3.7%	3.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.7%	0.4%
2013	91.0%	3.8%	3.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%	0.7%	0.4%
2014	91.0%	3.8%	3.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.7%	0.4%
2015	90.9%	3.8%	3.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.6%	0.4%
2016	91.0%	4.1%	3.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.7%	0.3%
2017	91.2%	4.2%	3.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.1%
2018	91.2%	4.3%	3.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%
2019	90.5%	4.4%	3.3%	0.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	90.0%	5.1%	3.3%	0.2%	0.9%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	88.7%	6.3%	3.7%	0.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	87.0%	7.9%	3.4%	0.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	85.6%	9.3%	3.1%	0.3%	0.9%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%
2024	85.0%	10.5%	3.0%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 91.2%. Overall it fell from 90.7% in 2009 to 85.0% in 2024, down 5.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jefferson County: its share of workers rose from 3.8% in 2009 to 10.5% in 2024, up 6.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Jefferson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jefferson County?

The bars show when commuters in Jefferson 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		10.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.1%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jefferson County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are more common than in Wisconsin: 23.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Wisconsin: 41.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.0%) 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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 Jefferson 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	Jefferson County	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:17 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:15 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:19 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:19 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:16 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:14 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:12 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:16 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:18 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:18 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jefferson County were on the road by 7:18 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:20 AM). Wisconsin followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Jefferson County now leave 20 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 Jefferson County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Jefferson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Jefferson County	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.7 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	12:00 AM – 04:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.5%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jefferson County is 21.7 minutes, longer than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 3.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Jefferson County, WI Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Jefferson County, WI is the smallest of the 6 counties compared here, 86,001 residents against a local median of 164,349. Nothing separates Jefferson County, WI 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 one-way commute, 8% above the local median at 21.7 min against 20.1 min. Jefferson County, WI has the 6th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Jefferson County, WI	86,001	21.7 min #6/6	10.5% #4/6	7:18 AM #2/6
Dodge County, WI	88,711	20.9 min	8.6%	7:02 AM
Walworth County, WI	105,657	20.1 min	11.2%	7:22 AM
Rock County, WI	164,349	19.0 min	9.2%	7:25 AM
Waukesha County, WI	411,699	21.4 min	16.8%	7:33 AM
Dane County, WI	572,416	20.1 min	20.0%	7:48 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Jefferson County, Wisconsin.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Jefferson County, Wisconsin?

Commuters here spend an estimated 181 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,613 at a typical national wage. That's 16% more than the typical Wisconsin commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Jefferson County, Wisconsin?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 12:00 AM – 04:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in Jefferson County, Wisconsin?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.4% of commuters use it versus 1.1% in Wisconsin, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

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).