Madison Heights Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:05 PM

Is the commute in Madison Heights longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:05 PM

Commute Time Burden in Madison Heights: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Madison Heights spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 185 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% more time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 0.8 minutes.

Madison Heights holds about 0.3% of Michigan's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Madison Heights would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,291 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)
Madison Heights	22.2 min	44.3 min	185 hrs/yr	$5,727	2,932
Michigan	21.3 min	42.6 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,509	1,585
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.

Madison Heights Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.2 minutes to get to work in Madison Heights. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Madison Heights

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Madison Heights, versus 0.1% in Michigan.

Biking is unusually common in Madison Heights: 3.1 times more than the Michigan average (1.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Madison Heights, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Madison Heights 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	Other	Bicycle	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	94.9%	2.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	94.2%	2.9%	0.9%	0.7%	0.2%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	94.8%	2.4%	1.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	93.3%	3.5%	1.1%	0.4%	0.3%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	93.4%	4.0%	1.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	92.5%	3.8%	1.1%	0.5%	0.3%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	92.1%	3.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.3%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	90.8%	3.7%	1.6%	0.7%	0.4%	2.3%	0.0%	0.4%
2017	90.6%	3.3%	1.6%	1.1%	0.4%	2.7%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	90.5%	3.1%	1.6%	1.2%	0.2%	2.7%	0.0%	0.7%
2019	92.2%	3.0%	1.0%	0.9%	0.4%	1.8%	0.0%	0.7%
2020	90.1%	4.8%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	1.2%	0.1%	1.3%
2021	87.7%	9.0%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	1.1%	0.1%	0.5%
2022	83.7%	12.7%	0.7%	0.6%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.4%
2023	80.6%	16.1%	1.0%	0.6%	1.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	74.9%	19.5%	1.7%	1.5%	1.0%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.9% in 2009 to 74.9% in 2024, down 20.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Madison Heights: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 19.5% in 2024, up 17.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 16.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit overtook walking to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Walking peaked at 2.7% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 1.0%.

Commute Start Times in Madison Heights

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Madison Heights?

The bars show when commuters in Madison Heights 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 Michigan for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		3.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.7%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		6.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.2%

Madison Heights Michigan Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Madison Heights is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.1% across Michigan. Early starts are about as common as in Michigan: 13.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Michigan: 48.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.6%) 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 Madison Heights, 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 Madison Heights 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 Madison Heights next to Michigan 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	Madison Heights	Michigan	United States
2009	7:44 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:47 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:51 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:01 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:55 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:57 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:56 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:50 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:54 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:47 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:49 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Madison Heights were on the road by 7:49 AM, 5 minutes later than in 2009 (7:44 AM). Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Madison Heights now leave 11 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 Madison Heights has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Madison Heights's commute time compare?

Metric	Madison Heights	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.2 min	21.3 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	19.5%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	1.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.7%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Madison Heights is 22.2 minutes, longer than the 21.3 minutes in Michigan.

1.7% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.9% in Michigan. 1.0% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Madison Heights, MI Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Madison Heights, MI compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Madison Heights, MI	28,434	22.2 min #2/2	19.5% #2/2	7:49 AM #1/2
Royal Oak, MI	57,530	22.0 min	27.4%	8:07 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Madison Heights, Michigan.

Is commuting expensive in Madison Heights, Michigan?

Commuters here spend an estimated 185 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,727 at a typical national wage. That's 4% more than the typical Michigan commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Madison Heights, Michigan?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Madison Heights, Michigan. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Is Madison Heights, Michigan a good location for remote and hybrid workers?

About 19.5% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Madison Heights would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,291 at the same national wage assumption used above.