Sun Prairie Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Sun Prairie, 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, 3:16 PM

How much time do drivers in Sun Prairie spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:16 PM

Commute Time Burden in Sun Prairie: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sun Prairie spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% more time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Sun Prairie holds about 0.5% of Wisconsin's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sun Prairie would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,176 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)
Sun Prairie	21.1 min	42.1 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,440	1,913
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.

Sun Prairie Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.1 minutes to get to work in Sun Prairie. That's 6% 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 18.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sun Prairie

Commute Mode Trends in Sun Prairie, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sun Prairie 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	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	95.3%	2.6%	1.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	94.0%	2.8%	1.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.5%	0.8%	0.3%
2011	93.8%	3.3%	1.2%	0.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.7%	0.2%
2012	94.3%	3.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%
2013	92.8%	4.2%	1.5%	0.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	92.8%	4.0%	1.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%
2015	92.9%	4.0%	1.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%
2016	92.3%	3.5%	2.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%
2017	91.4%	3.7%	2.3%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%
2018	91.4%	4.1%	1.5%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.8%	0.2%
2019	90.7%	5.0%	1.3%	1.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	87.1%	8.4%	1.3%	1.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	82.4%	13.1%	1.3%	1.0%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	79.2%	16.6%	1.6%	1.1%	0.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	78.1%	17.8%	1.5%	0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	76.9%	18.9%	1.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.7%	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 95.3% in 2009 to 76.9% in 2024, down 18.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Sun Prairie: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 18.9% in 2024, up 16.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 13.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking overtook taking a taxi to become the 4th most common choice in the 2016 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Sun Prairie

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sun Prairie?

The bars show when commuters in Sun Prairie 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		2.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.3%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		19.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Sun Prairie is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 10.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 57.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.2%) 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 Sun Prairie, 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 Sun Prairie 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 Sun Prairie 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	Sun Prairie	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:35 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:34 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:31 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:33 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:35 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:39 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:42 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sun Prairie were on the road by 7:37 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:29 AM). That goes against the trend across Wisconsin, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Sun Prairie now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Sun Prairie's commute time compare?

Metric	Sun Prairie	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.1 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	18.9%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Sun Prairie is 21.1 minutes, longer than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin?

Commuters here spend an estimated 175 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,440 at a typical national wage. That's 12% more than the typical Wisconsin commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How much time do residents in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin save by working from home?

About 18.9% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Sun Prairie would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,176 at the same national wage assumption used above.