Jersey City Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Jersey City: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Jersey City spend about 67 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 278 hours, about 11.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% more time on the road than the New Jersey average of 26.2 minutes each way, a difference of 7.2 minutes.

Jersey City holds about 3.1% of New Jersey's population but accounts for roughly 4.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Jersey City would save about 111 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $3,453 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)
Jersey City	33.4 min	66.8 min	278 hrs/yr	$8,633	3,259
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.

Jersey City Commute Map

On average, it takes 33.4 minutes to get to work in Jersey City. That's 49% 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. Public transit is the most common commute choice, followed by driving. About 24.7% work from home. This differs from the national pattern, where driving is the most common commute choice.

How People Get to Work in Jersey City

• Public Transportation: 36.1% unusually high
• Car: 30.4% unusually low
• Worked at Home: 24.7%
• Walked: 5.5%
• Other: 1.3%
• Taxi: 1.0%
• Bicycle: 1.0% unusually high
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Driving is 57% less common in Jersey City than the New Jersey average (30.4% vs 69.9%).

Public transit is unusually common in Jersey City: 4.4 times more than the New Jersey average (36.1% vs 8.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Jersey City: 3.3 times more than the New Jersey average (1.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Jersey City, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Jersey City 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.

• Public Transportation
• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Taxi
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Public Transportation	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	45.2%	42.5%	2.7%	8.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2010	45.7%	41.7%	2.9%	8.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	46.0%	41.0%	3.1%	8.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2012	45.9%	41.2%	2.9%	8.6%	0.8%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%
2013	46.0%	41.2%	3.0%	8.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	47.3%	39.9%	3.2%	8.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	47.6%	39.6%	3.4%	8.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	47.3%	39.7%	3.3%	8.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%
2017	48.4%	38.6%	3.2%	8.0%	0.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%
2018	48.4%	38.4%	3.4%	7.8%	1.0%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%
2019	48.5%	38.0%	3.8%	7.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%
2020	45.3%	36.5%	8.9%	6.8%	0.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%
2021	41.6%	34.8%	14.5%	6.5%	0.9%	0.9%	0.8%	0.0%
2022	38.8%	33.6%	18.7%	6.0%	1.0%	1.1%	0.7%	0.0%
2023	37.1%	32.8%	21.6%	5.5%	1.1%	1.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2024	36.1%	30.4%	24.7%	5.5%	1.3%	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%

Driving's share fell from 42.5% in 2009 to 30.4% in 2024, down 12.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Jersey City: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 24.7% in 2024, up 22.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 20.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 45.2% to 36.1% of workers (down 9.1 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Public transit was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024, with its share ranging from 36.1% to 48.5%.

Commute Start Times in Jersey City

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Jersey City?

The bars show when commuters in Jersey City 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	12:00-4:59 AM Jersey City3.9% New Jersey3.9%	3.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Jersey City2.1% New Jersey3.1%	2.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Jersey City2.7% New Jersey3.9%	2.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Jersey City5.7% New Jersey8.0%	5.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Jersey City5.5% New Jersey8.9%	5.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Jersey City12.6% New Jersey14.2%	12.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Jersey City10.0% New Jersey11.8%	10.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Jersey City22.2% New Jersey14.0%	22.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Jersey City9.6% New Jersey7.6%	9.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Jersey City10.0% New Jersey8.1%	10.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Jersey City4.0% New Jersey3.2%	4.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Jersey City1.6% New Jersey1.5%	1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Jersey City6.6% New Jersey6.3%	6.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Jersey City3.4% New Jersey5.4%	3.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Jersey City is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 22.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.0% across New Jersey. Early starts are less common than in New Jersey: 8.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.9% there. The morning rush looks much like New Jersey's: 50.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.6%) 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 Jersey City, 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 Jersey City 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 Jersey City 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.

• Jersey City
• New Jersey
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Jersey City	New Jersey	United States
2009	8:02 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:04 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:05 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:07 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:08 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:11 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:10 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:09 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:10 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:09 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:09 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:11 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:10 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:10 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:10 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Jersey City were on the road by 8:10 AM, 8 minutes later than in 2009 (8:02 AM). The shift is sharper than across New Jersey, where the typical start moved 2 minutes later. Commuters in Jersey City now leave 32 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Jersey City's commute time compare?

Metric	Jersey City	New Jersey	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	33.4 min	26.2 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	24.7%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	5.5%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	36.1%	8.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Jersey City is 33.4 minutes, longer than the 26.2 minutes in New Jersey.

36.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 8.1% in New Jersey. 5.5% commute by walking, higher than the 2.6% in New Jersey.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau