Wauwatosa Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Wauwatosa, 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, 4:30 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Wauwatosa?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:30 PM

Commute Time Burden in Wauwatosa: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wauwatosa spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 152 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% less time on the road than the Wisconsin average of 18.8 minutes each way, a difference of 0.5 minutes.

Wauwatosa holds about 0.8% of Wisconsin's population and accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Wauwatosa would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,888 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)
Wauwatosa	18.3 min	36.5 min	152 hrs/yr	$4,719	3,001
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.

Wauwatosa Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.3 minutes to get to work in Wauwatosa. 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 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 22.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wauwatosa

Commute Mode Trends in Wauwatosa, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Wauwatosa 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	Bicycle	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.6%	3.9%	2.1%	1.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	90.9%	4.1%	1.9%	1.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	90.7%	4.0%	2.4%	1.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	90.3%	4.2%	2.3%	2.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	90.3%	4.4%	2.1%	2.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	90.7%	3.9%	2.2%	1.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	91.0%	3.5%	2.6%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	91.2%	3.6%	2.3%	1.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	90.6%	3.8%	2.6%	1.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	90.2%	4.5%	2.5%	1.7%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	89.4%	4.6%	3.0%	1.6%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	87.3%	7.6%	2.7%	1.3%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	83.4%	11.9%	2.5%	1.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	80.6%	15.1%	2.3%	0.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	77.3%	18.1%	2.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	73.2%	22.4%	2.6%	0.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 91.6% in 2009 to 73.2% in 2024, down 18.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wauwatosa: its share of workers rose from 3.9% in 2009 to 22.4% in 2024, up 18.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 17.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.5% to 0.7% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Wauwatosa

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wauwatosa?

The bars show when commuters in Wauwatosa 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		2.9%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		18.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		16.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.2%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wauwatosa is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 18.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.7% across Wisconsin. Early starts are less common than in Wisconsin: 7.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Wisconsin: 60.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.8% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.1%) 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 Wauwatosa, 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 Wauwatosa 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 Wauwatosa 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	Wauwatosa	Wisconsin	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:47 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:47 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:47 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:46 AM	7:31 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:46 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:43 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:42 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:42 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:27 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:46 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:46 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wauwatosa were on the road by 7:46 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Wisconsin, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Wauwatosa now leave 9 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Wauwatosa has moved 3 minutes later.

How does Wauwatosa's commute time compare?

Metric	Wauwatosa	Wisconsin	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.3 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	22.4%	13.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.6%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wauwatosa is 18.3 minutes, shorter than the 18.8 minutes in Wisconsin.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.1% in Wisconsin. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Wauwatosa, WI Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

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

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Wauwatosa, WI	48,477	18.3 min #1/3	22.4% #1/3	7:46 AM #3/3
West Allis, WI	59,584	19.0 min	10.1%	7:29 AM
Milwaukee, WI	561,873	20.6 min	12.8%	7:45 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

Is commuting expensive in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin?

Commuters here spend an estimated 152 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,719 at a typical national wage. That's 3% less than the typical Wisconsin commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

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

About 22.4% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Wauwatosa would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,888 at the same national wage assumption used above.