East Haven Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 7:57 PM

How much time do drivers in East Haven spend on the road daily?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:57 PM

Commute Time Burden in East Haven: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in East Haven spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 158 hours, about 6.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Connecticut average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 3.2 minutes.

East Haven holds about 0.7% of Connecticut's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in East Haven would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,954 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 Haven	18.9 min	37.8 min	158 hrs/yr	$4,886	3,683
Connecticut	22.1 min	44.2 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,704	1,748
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 Haven Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.9 minutes to get to work in East Haven. 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 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in East Haven

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in East Haven, versus 0.1% in Connecticut.

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in East Haven: 7.4 times less than the Connecticut average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in East Haven, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in East Haven 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	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	92.8%	2.3%	1.3%	3.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	94.2%	1.8%	1.0%	2.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	94.5%	2.1%	0.6%	2.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	94.4%	1.9%	0.5%	2.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	95.1%	1.4%	0.6%	1.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	93.7%	1.6%	1.9%	1.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	91.8%	2.8%	2.4%	2.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	91.4%	3.2%	2.1%	2.3%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	90.7%	3.7%	2.3%	2.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	90.0%	3.6%	2.2%	2.9%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	90.1%	4.3%	1.5%	3.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	88.9%	5.3%	2.4%	2.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	87.7%	6.3%	3.1%	2.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	86.9%	7.4%	3.2%	1.3%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	86.6%	8.1%	3.2%	1.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.9%	9.0%	3.0%	1.3%	0.6%	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 peaked in 2013 at 95.1%. Overall it fell from 92.8% in 2009 to 85.9% in 2024, down 6.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in East Haven: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 9.0% in 2024, up 6.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 3.1% to 1.3% of workers (down 1.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2015 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in East Haven

What Time Do People Leave for Work in East Haven?

The bars show when commuters in East Haven 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 Connecticut for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		12.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.8%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		3.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.6%

East Haven Connecticut Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in East Haven is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across Connecticut. Early starts are more common than in Connecticut: 13.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Connecticut: 43.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.2%) 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 East Haven, 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 Haven 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 Haven next to Connecticut 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 Haven	Connecticut	United States
2009	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:36 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:46 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:46 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:48 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:50 AM	7:46 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in East Haven were on the road by 7:37 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:45 AM). That goes against the trend across Connecticut, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in East Haven now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in East Haven has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does East Haven's commute time compare?

Metric	East Haven	Connecticut	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.9 min	22.1 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.0%	16.2%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.3%	3.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in East Haven is 18.9 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Connecticut.

1.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.2% in Connecticut. 3.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Connecticut.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

East Haven, CT Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

East Haven, CT is the smallest of the 4 cities compared here, 21,764 residents against a local median of 42,344. Where East Haven, CT breaks from the cities next to it is work from home, sitting 30% below the local median of 12.8% at 9.0%.

The cities themselves spread 5.4% on work from home, so East Haven, CT sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. East Haven, CT has the 4th highest work from home of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
East Haven, CT	21,764	18.9 min #4/4	9.0% #4/4	7:37 AM #1/4
New Haven, CT	103,945	18.6 min	12.8%	8:09 AM
North Haven, CT	24,302	18.1 min	14.9%	7:50 AM
West Haven, CT	42,344	18.8 min	9.4%	7:54 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in East Haven, Connecticut.

What is the financial impact of commuting in East Haven, Connecticut?

Commuters here spend an estimated 158 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,886 at a typical national wage. That's 14% less than the typical Connecticut commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in East Haven, Connecticut?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in East Haven, Connecticut. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.