Elizabeth Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 12:04 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Elizabeth?

Map AI 9/24/26, 12:04 PM

Commute Time Burden in Elizabeth: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Elizabeth spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 193 hours, about 8.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% less time on the road than the New Jersey average of 26.2 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Elizabeth holds about 1.5% of New Jersey's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Elizabeth would save about 77 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,389 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)
Elizabeth	23.1 min	46.2 min	193 hrs/yr	$5,973	3,960
New Jersey	26.2 min	52.4 min	218 hrs/yr	$6,764	2,109
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.

Elizabeth Commute Map

On average, it takes 23.1 minutes to get to work in Elizabeth. That's 3% longer 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 public transit. About 6.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Elizabeth

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Elizabeth: 6.0 times more than the New Jersey average (0.2% vs 0.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Elizabeth, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Elizabeth 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	Public Transportation	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	66.3%	10.4%	1.8%	6.5%	14.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	66.0%	10.5%	1.9%	6.7%	14.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	66.0%	11.4%	2.4%	6.7%	13.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	67.2%	11.9%	2.9%	6.8%	10.8%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	67.5%	12.0%	3.4%	6.4%	9.6%	0.3%	0.7%	0.1%
2014	68.5%	11.4%	3.1%	6.5%	9.7%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%
2015	68.1%	11.3%	3.5%	5.8%	10.4%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%
2016	68.2%	10.9%	3.4%	5.6%	11.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2017	69.1%	10.5%	2.9%	5.0%	11.5%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%
2018	68.0%	11.1%	2.6%	5.0%	12.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2019	68.5%	10.7%	2.9%	5.1%	12.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2020	71.7%	10.0%	3.5%	4.4%	9.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	73.2%	9.7%	4.2%	4.3%	7.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.0%
2022	73.3%	10.4%	4.8%	4.8%	5.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%
2023	74.3%	11.5%	5.7%	4.7%	2.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	75.0%	11.0%	6.3%	4.7%	1.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2010 at 66.0%. Overall it rose from 66.3% in 2009 to 75.0% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Elizabeth: its share of workers rose from 1.8% in 2009 to 6.3% in 2024, up 4.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 6.5% to 4.7% of workers (down 1.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit peaked at 12.0% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 11.0%.

Commute Start Times in Elizabeth

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Elizabeth?

The bars show when commuters in Elizabeth 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 New Jersey for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		12.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		16.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.2%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.2%

Elizabeth New Jersey Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Elizabeth is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across New Jersey. Early starts are more common than in New Jersey: 18.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Jersey: 42.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.8%) 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 Elizabeth, 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 Elizabeth 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 Elizabeth next to New Jersey 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	Elizabeth	New Jersey	United States
2009	7:32 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:26 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:24 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:26 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:19 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Elizabeth were on the road by 7:20 AM, 12 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:32 AM). That goes against the trend across New Jersey, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Elizabeth now leave 18 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 Elizabeth has moved 7 minutes earlier.

How does Elizabeth's commute time compare?

Metric	Elizabeth	New Jersey	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	23.1 min	26.2 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	6.3%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	4.7%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	11.0%	8.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Elizabeth is 23.1 minutes, shorter than the 26.2 minutes in New Jersey.

11.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 8.1% in New Jersey. 4.7% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in New Jersey.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Elizabeth, NJ Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Elizabeth, NJ is the 2nd largest of the 4 cities compared here, 137,246 residents against a local median of 44,201. Elizabeth, NJ's one-way commute, at 23.1 min, runs 23% below the 30.2 min typical of the cities around it. That is the better end of the local range on this measure.

The cities themselves spread 3.9 min on one-way commute, so Elizabeth, NJ sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Elizabeth, NJ has the lowest one-way commute of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Elizabeth, NJ	137,246	23.1 min #1/4	6.3% #4/4	7:20 AM #1/4
Newark, NJ	309,652	30.2 min	7.3%	7:35 AM
Linden, NJ	44,201	27.0 min	7.3%	7:46 AM
Roselle, NJ	22,520	30.8 min	10.3%	7:31 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Elizabeth, New Jersey?

Commuters here spend an estimated 193 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,973 at a typical national wage. That's 12% less than the typical New Jersey commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Elizabeth, New Jersey?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Elizabeth, New Jersey. 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.