East Los Angeles Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in East Los Angeles, California: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 3:44 PM

Is the commute in East Los Angeles longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:44 PM

Commute Time Burden in East Los Angeles: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in East Los Angeles spend about 56 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 234 hours, about 9.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 19% more time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 4.6 minutes.

East Los Angeles holds about 0.3% of California's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in East Los Angeles would save about 94 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,899 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)
East Los Angeles	28.1 min	56.1 min	234 hrs/yr	$7,247	3,437
California	23.5 min	47.0 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,065	2,449
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.

East Los Angeles Commute Map

On average, it takes 28.1 minutes to get to work in East Los Angeles. That's 25% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in East Los Angeles

Commute Mode Trends in East Los Angeles, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in East Los Angeles 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	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	77.6%	2.1%	13.4%	4.2%	2.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	76.7%	2.5%	13.9%	4.3%	1.9%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	77.0%	2.6%	13.8%	4.0%	1.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	77.2%	2.0%	14.1%	4.2%	1.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	78.9%	2.3%	12.7%	4.0%	1.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	79.8%	2.1%	12.0%	4.2%	0.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	81.3%	2.0%	10.9%	4.2%	0.6%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	81.9%	1.7%	10.0%	4.7%	0.7%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	82.9%	2.0%	8.9%	4.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	83.8%	1.8%	8.0%	4.5%	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	84.1%	2.0%	8.2%	3.7%	1.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	83.4%	3.5%	8.3%	2.8%	1.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	81.9%	5.4%	7.4%	2.7%	1.5%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	81.0%	6.0%	7.3%	2.8%	1.7%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%
2023	80.8%	7.1%	6.8%	2.6%	1.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	79.4%	8.4%	6.0%	3.0%	1.8%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2019 at 84.1% and lowest in 2010 at 76.7%. Overall it rose from 77.6% in 2009 to 79.4% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in East Los Angeles: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2024, up 6.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 13.4% to 6.0% of workers (down 7.4 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in East Los Angeles

What Time Do People Leave for Work in East Los Angeles?

The bars show when commuters in East Los Angeles 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 California for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		10.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		8.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.0%

East Los Angeles California Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in East Los Angeles is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 21.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush looks much like California's: 41.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% 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 East Los Angeles, 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 East Los Angeles 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 East Los Angeles next to California 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	East Los Angeles	California	United States
2009	7:21 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:24 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:24 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:25 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:24 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:23 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:22 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:22 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in East Los Angeles were on the road by 7:22 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:21 AM). Across California the shift was bigger still, with the typical start moving 6 minutes later. Commuters in East Los Angeles now leave 16 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 East Los Angeles has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does East Los Angeles's commute time compare?

Metric	East Los Angeles	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.1 min	23.5 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.4%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	6.0%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in East Los Angeles is 28.1 minutes, longer than the 23.5 minutes in California.

6.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 2.9% in California. 3.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

East Los Angeles, CA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

East Los Angeles, CA is the largest of the 4 cities compared here, 110,433 residents against a local median of 33,319. Where East Los Angeles, CA breaks from the cities next to it is work from home, sitting 94% above the local median of 4.4% at 8.4%.

The cities themselves spread 13.5% on work from home, so East Los Angeles, CA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. East Los Angeles, CA has the 2nd highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
East Los Angeles, CA	110,433	28.1 min #2/4	8.4% #2/4	7:22 AM #3/4
Monterey Park, CA	59,749	27.4 min	17.8%	8:27 AM
Maywood, CA	22,721	30.3 min	4.4%	7:08 AM
Bell, CA	33,319	30.5 min	4.3%	7:04 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in East Los Angeles, California.

What is the financial impact of commuting in East Los Angeles, California?

Commuters here spend an estimated 234 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,247 at a typical national wage. That's 19% more than the typical California commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in East Los Angeles, California?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in East Los Angeles, California. 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.