Wheaton Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 12:01 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 12:01 PM

Commute Time Burden in Wheaton: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wheaton spend about 62 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 259 hours, about 10.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% more time on the road than the Maryland average of 28.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.8 minutes.

Wheaton holds about 0.9% of Maryland's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Wheaton would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,215 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)
Wheaton	31.1 min	62.2 min	259 hrs/yr	$8,037	4,339
Maryland	28.3 min	56.5 min	236 hrs/yr	$7,301	2,353
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.

Wheaton Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.1 minutes to get to work in Wheaton. That's 39% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 20.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wheaton

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Wheaton: 6483.5 times less than the Maryland average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually rare in Wheaton: 4.9 times less than the Maryland average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Wheaton, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Wheaton 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	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	72.6%	2.8%	22.3%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	71.8%	2.8%	22.5%	1.9%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	71.9%	2.5%	22.9%	1.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	71.5%	2.5%	23.6%	1.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	73.4%	2.7%	21.8%	1.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	71.2%	3.0%	23.5%	1.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	71.6%	2.8%	23.4%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	71.1%	3.3%	23.6%	1.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	71.4%	3.3%	22.9%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	71.8%	3.6%	21.8%	1.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%
2019	71.9%	4.0%	20.8%	1.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	72.2%	6.4%	18.8%	1.1%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	70.6%	10.4%	16.1%	1.1%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	70.5%	13.1%	14.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	66.9%	17.4%	13.4%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	66.7%	20.3%	11.3%	1.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	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 73.4%. Overall it fell from 72.6% in 2009 to 66.7% in 2024, down 5.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wheaton: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 20.3% in 2024, up 17.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 16.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 22.3% to 11.3% of workers (down 11.0 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 Wheaton

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wheaton?

The bars show when commuters in Wheaton 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 Maryland for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		6.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		14.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.7%

Wheaton Maryland Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Wheaton is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 14.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.9% across Maryland. Early starts are less common than in Maryland: 13.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Maryland's: 45.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.0%) 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 Wheaton, 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 Wheaton 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 Wheaton next to Maryland 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	Wheaton	Maryland	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:45 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:47 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:45 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:48 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:49 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wheaton were on the road by 7:49 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (7:44 AM). Maryland followed the same path, with the typical start moving 4 minutes later. Commuters in Wheaton now leave 11 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Wheaton in the whole series.

How does Wheaton's commute time compare?

Metric	Wheaton	Maryland	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.1 min	28.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	20.3%	19.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	11.3%	4.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wheaton is 31.1 minutes, longer than the 28.3 minutes in Maryland.

11.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 4.2% in Maryland. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Maryland.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Wheaton, Maryland.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Wheaton, Maryland?

Commuters here spend an estimated 259 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,037 at a typical national wage. That's 10% more than the typical Maryland commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Wheaton, Maryland?

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