Columbia Heights Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 4:06 PM

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

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:06 PM

Commute Time Burden in Columbia Heights: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Columbia Heights spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 186 hours, about 7.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% more time on the road than the Minnesota average of 20.3 minutes each way, a difference of 2.0 minutes.

Columbia Heights holds about 0.4% of Minnesota's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Columbia Heights would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,307 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)
Columbia Heights	22.3 min	44.6 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,767	2,254
Minnesota	20.3 min	40.6 min	169 hrs/yr	$5,249	854
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.

Columbia Heights Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.3 minutes to get to work in Columbia Heights. That's about the same as the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 18.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Columbia Heights

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Columbia Heights, versus 0.1% in Minnesota.

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Columbia Heights: 266980.3 times less than the Minnesota average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Columbia Heights, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Columbia 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	Walked	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	87.1%	2.8%	6.1%	1.1%	2.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%
2010	87.3%	3.0%	6.7%	0.8%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%
2011	84.1%	3.5%	8.3%	1.4%	1.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.7%
2012	83.6%	3.8%	8.3%	0.9%	2.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.9%
2013	83.8%	3.5%	9.1%	0.4%	1.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.9%
2014	84.4%	3.0%	8.7%	0.4%	2.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.7%
2015	84.7%	2.4%	8.8%	0.5%	2.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.8%
2016	86.1%	2.0%	8.6%	0.2%	2.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	86.6%	1.6%	8.6%	0.4%	1.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	86.4%	2.1%	8.4%	0.5%	1.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	85.8%	2.5%	8.7%	0.7%	1.4%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	83.5%	7.0%	7.0%	0.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2021	80.3%	11.7%	5.5%	1.3%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	79.4%	13.6%	4.1%	1.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	74.7%	17.2%	3.9%	2.7%	1.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	74.8%	18.0%	3.3%	2.3%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2010 at 87.3% and lowest in 2023 at 74.7%. Overall it fell from 87.1% in 2009 to 74.8% in 2024, down 12.3 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Columbia Heights: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 18.0% in 2024, up 15.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 15.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 6.1% to 3.3% of workers (down 2.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Columbia Heights

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Columbia Heights?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		10.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.9%
7:30-7:59 AM		8.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.1%

Columbia Heights Minnesota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Columbia Heights is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.8% across Minnesota. Early starts are more common than in Minnesota: 18.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Minnesota: 41.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.2%) 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 Columbia 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 Columbia 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 Columbia Heights next to Minnesota 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	Columbia Heights	Minnesota	United States
2009	7:33 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:34 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:39 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:33 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Columbia Heights were on the road by 7:29 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:33 AM). Across Minnesota, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Columbia Heights now leave 9 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 Columbia Heights has moved 14 minutes earlier.

How does Columbia Heights's commute time compare?

Metric	Columbia Heights	Minnesota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.3 min	20.3 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	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	18.0%	17.6%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	3.3%	1.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Columbia Heights is 22.3 minutes, longer than the 20.3 minutes in Minnesota.

3.3% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.8% in Minnesota. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.5% in Minnesota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Columbia Heights, MN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Columbia Heights, MN compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Columbia Heights, MN	22,385	22.3 min #3/3	18.0% #2/3	7:29 AM #2/3
Fridley, MN	30,321	21.8 min	15.6%	7:28 AM
New Brighton, MN	22,744	21.1 min	19.9%	7:41 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Columbia Heights, Minnesota?

Commuters here spend an estimated 186 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,767 at a typical national wage. That's 10% more than the typical Minnesota commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Columbia Heights, Minnesota?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM also sees a secondary bump.