Fort Lee Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Fort Lee, 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, 4:10 PM

Is the commute in Fort Lee longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:10 PM

Commute Time Burden in Fort Lee: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fort Lee spend about 63 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 261 hours, about 10.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% more time on the road than the New Jersey average of 26.2 minutes each way, a difference of 5.1 minutes.

Fort Lee holds about 0.4% of New Jersey's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fort Lee would save about 104 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,234 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)
Fort Lee	31.3 min	62.6 min	261 hrs/yr	$8,085	2,990
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.

Fort Lee Commute Map

On average, it takes 31.3 minutes to get to work in Fort Lee. That's 40% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:30 AM – 08:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 21.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fort Lee

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Fort Lee: 4.4 times more than the New Jersey average (0.2% vs 0.0%).

Driving is 25% less common in Fort Lee than the New Jersey average (52.5% vs 69.9%).

Commute Mode Trends in Fort Lee, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fort Lee 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	67.0%	5.4%	22.0%	4.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	67.8%	5.2%	23.0%	3.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	70.6%	4.4%	20.2%	4.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	68.6%	5.2%	21.1%	4.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	67.2%	6.7%	20.4%	4.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	65.6%	6.8%	21.7%	5.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	65.0%	7.0%	22.1%	5.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	62.2%	7.4%	25.4%	4.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	61.9%	7.5%	25.9%	3.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	62.1%	6.5%	27.1%	3.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	61.8%	6.5%	27.2%	2.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	59.5%	9.5%	26.5%	3.0%	0.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	57.4%	12.5%	24.3%	4.0%	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2022	57.1%	15.6%	21.9%	3.9%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	54.4%	19.6%	20.7%	3.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%
2024	52.5%	21.6%	20.1%	3.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2011 at 70.6%. Overall it fell from 67.0% in 2009 to 52.5% in 2024, down 14.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fort Lee: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 21.6% in 2024, up 16.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 15.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 22.0% to 20.1% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2024 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Fort Lee

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fort Lee?

The bars show when commuters in Fort Lee 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		1.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.3%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.2%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.7%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.9%
8:30-8:59 AM		14.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		12.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		6.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.9%
4:00-11:59 PM		1.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Fort Lee is 8:30-8:59 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 7.6% across New Jersey. Early starts are less common than in New Jersey: 7.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Jersey: 44.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% 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 Fort Lee, 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 Fort Lee 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 Fort Lee 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	Fort Lee	New Jersey	United States
2009	8:06 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:07 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:08 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:09 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:08 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:07 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:04 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:04 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:06 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:09 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:10 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:10 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:09 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:11 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:10 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fort Lee were on the road by 8:10 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (8:06 AM). New Jersey followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes later. Commuters in Fort Lee now leave 32 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Fort Lee's commute time compare?

Metric	Fort Lee	New Jersey	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	31.3 min	26.2 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:30 AM – 08:59 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	21.6%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	3.9%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	20.1%	8.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fort Lee is 31.3 minutes, longer than the 26.2 minutes in New Jersey.

20.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 8.1% in New Jersey. 3.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in New Jersey.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Fort Lee, NJ Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Fort Lee, NJ compares with the 2 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Fort Lee, NJ	39,670	31.3 min #2/3	21.6% #1/3	8:10 AM #2/3
Palisades Park, NJ	20,140	26.0 min	12.6%	8:11 AM
Cliffside Park, NJ	25,703	32.6 min	18.1%	7:44 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Fort Lee, New Jersey?

Commuters here spend an estimated 261 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $8,085 at a typical national wage. That's 20% more than the typical New Jersey commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Fort Lee, New Jersey?

Traffic peaks between 08:30 AM – 08:59 AM in Fort Lee, New Jersey. 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.