Waukesha Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Waukesha, 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, 4:29 PM

Is the commute in Waukesha longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:29 PM

Commute Time Burden in Waukesha: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Waukesha spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 157 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is about the same time on the road as the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way.

Waukesha holds about 1.0% of Wisconsin's population and accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Waukesha would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,944 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)
Waukesha	18.8 min	37.6 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,860	2,694
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.

Waukesha Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.8 minutes to get to work in Waukesha. That's 16% 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 12.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Waukesha

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Waukesha: 31.0 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Waukesha, versus 0.2% in Wisconsin.

Biking is unusually rare in Waukesha: 8.8 times less than the Wisconsin average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Waukesha, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Waukesha 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	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	90.5%	2.2%	4.4%	0.4%	1.8%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	90.3%	2.8%	4.0%	0.3%	1.8%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	90.5%	3.3%	3.6%	0.3%	1.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	89.6%	3.7%	3.9%	0.4%	1.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.4%
2013	90.0%	3.5%	4.1%	0.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2014	89.9%	3.6%	4.1%	0.5%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.4%
2015	90.2%	3.1%	4.3%	0.3%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%
2016	90.9%	2.9%	3.9%	0.3%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	91.0%	2.9%	3.6%	0.4%	1.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	91.0%	3.0%	3.4%	0.3%	1.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2019	90.3%	3.1%	4.1%	0.5%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2020	89.2%	4.8%	3.4%	1.0%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	86.3%	7.6%	3.6%	1.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	85.2%	9.3%	3.3%	1.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2023	83.5%	11.4%	3.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	83.7%	12.3%	2.5%	0.9%	0.5%	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 was highest in 2017 at 91.0% and lowest in 2023 at 83.5%. Overall it fell from 90.5% in 2009 to 83.7% in 2024, down 6.8 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Waukesha: its share of workers rose from 2.2% in 2009 to 12.3% in 2024, up 10.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.4% to 2.5% of workers (down 1.9 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 Waukesha

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Waukesha?

The bars show when commuters in Waukesha 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		4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Waukesha is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 13.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 50.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.5%) 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 Waukesha, 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 Waukesha 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 Waukesha 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	Waukesha	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:40 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:39 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:37 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:38 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:40 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:40 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:33 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Waukesha were on the road by 7:31 AM, 9 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:40 AM). The shift is sharper than across Wisconsin, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Waukesha now leave 7 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 Waukesha has moved 9 minutes earlier.

How does Waukesha's commute time compare?

Metric	Waukesha	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.8 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	12.3%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.5%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Waukesha is about the same as in Wisconsin.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. 2.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.6% in Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Waukesha, WI Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Waukesha, WI compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Waukesha, WI	57,950	18.8 min #2/3	12.3% #3/3	7:31 AM #1/3
Pewaukee, WI	21,422	18.5 min	19.1%	7:42 AM
New Berlin, WI	42,296	21.2 min	15.4%	7:37 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Waukesha, Wisconsin?

Commuters here spend an estimated 157 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,860 at a typical national wage.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Waukesha, Wisconsin?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Waukesha, 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.