Sauk County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Sauk County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sauk County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 153 hours, about 6.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% less time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 0.4 minutes.

Sauk County holds about 1.1% of Wisconsin's population and accounts for roughly 1.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sauk County would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,896 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)
Sauk County	18.4 min	36.7 min	153 hrs/yr	$4,741	385
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

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.4 minutes to get to work in Sauk County. That's 18% 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 9.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sauk County

• Car: 86.0%
• Worked at Home: 9.6%
• Walked: 2.4%
• Other: 0.9%
• Bicycle: 0.5%
• Taxi: 0.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Sauk County: 8.8 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.1% vs 1.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Sauk County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sauk 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Public Transportation	Motorcycle
2009	91.3%	4.8%	2.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2010	90.9%	5.3%	2.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2011	90.9%	5.0%	2.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.5%
2012	91.3%	4.6%	2.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2013	90.5%	4.8%	3.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
2014	90.3%	4.2%	3.7%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2015	90.2%	3.7%	3.9%	0.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%
2016	90.7%	3.7%	3.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	90.6%	4.0%	3.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	90.4%	4.4%	3.5%	0.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	90.4%	4.3%	3.4%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	90.2%	4.9%	3.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	89.2%	6.3%	2.8%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	87.3%	7.7%	3.1%	1.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	87.1%	8.4%	2.5%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	86.0%	9.6%	2.4%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 91.3% in 2009 to 86.0% in 2024, down 5.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Sauk County: its share of workers rose from 4.8% in 2009 to 9.6% in 2024, up 4.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 3.9% in 2015 and has since fallen back to 2.4%.

Commute Start Times in Sauk County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sauk County?

The bars show when commuters in Sauk 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	12:00-4:59 AM Sauk County7.8% Wisconsin6.9%	7.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Sauk County4.6% Wisconsin4.7%	4.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Sauk County5.2% Wisconsin6.1%	5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Sauk County10.2% Wisconsin8.5%	10.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Sauk County12.2% Wisconsin10.4%	12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Sauk County12.8% Wisconsin14.7%	12.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Sauk County12.9% Wisconsin12.7%	12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Sauk County8.4% Wisconsin9.0%	8.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Sauk County3.3% Wisconsin4.0%	3.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Sauk County5.2% Wisconsin4.7%	5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Sauk County2.0% Wisconsin2.4%	2.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Sauk County1.2% Wisconsin1.3%	1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Sauk County7.2% Wisconsin8.1%	7.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Sauk County7.0% Wisconsin6.4%	7.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Sauk County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 12.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are about as common as in Wisconsin: 17.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Wisconsin's: 46.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.6%) 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 Sauk 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 Sauk 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 Sauk 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.

• Sauk County
• Wisconsin
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Sauk County	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:28 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:28 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:25 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:24 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sauk County were on the road by 7:24 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:28 AM). Wisconsin followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Sauk County now leave 14 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Sauk County's commute time compare?

Metric	Sauk County	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.4 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	9.6%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Sauk County is 18.4 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 2.4% commute by walking, lower than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau