Plainfield Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Plainfield, 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

How much time do drivers in Plainfield spend on the road daily?

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

Commute Time Burden in Plainfield: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Plainfield spend about 56 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 231 hours, about 9.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% more time on the road than the New Jersey average of 26.2 minutes each way, a difference of 1.6 minutes.

Plainfield holds about 0.6% of New Jersey's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Plainfield would save about 93 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,869 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)
Plainfield	27.8 min	55.5 min	231 hrs/yr	$7,172	2,988
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.

Plainfield Commute Map

On average, it takes 27.8 minutes to get to work in Plainfield. That's 24% 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 other means. About 6.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Plainfield

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Plainfield: 4.6 times more than the New Jersey average (2.8% vs 0.6%).

Commute Mode Trends in Plainfield, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Plainfield 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	Other	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Taxi	Walked	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	75.5%	8.0%	2.3%	9.4%	0.7%	3.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2010	69.4%	14.5%	2.0%	9.0%	0.7%	3.7%	0.6%	0.0%
2011	65.4%	17.9%	1.9%	9.2%	0.6%	4.1%	1.0%	0.0%
2012	64.2%	19.2%	2.1%	8.4%	0.7%	4.2%	1.1%	0.0%
2013	61.9%	21.6%	1.6%	9.0%	1.1%	4.0%	0.8%	0.0%
2014	62.1%	22.1%	1.6%	8.8%	1.0%	3.5%	0.9%	0.0%
2015	61.5%	22.5%	1.9%	7.9%	1.3%	4.1%	0.9%	0.0%
2016	64.8%	19.2%	1.6%	8.5%	1.5%	4.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2017	68.0%	16.4%	1.3%	8.8%	1.3%	3.8%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	70.6%	12.3%	1.5%	9.0%	1.6%	4.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2019	71.6%	11.2%	2.4%	8.9%	1.3%	4.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2020	76.2%	7.3%	3.1%	8.0%	1.4%	3.7%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	72.0%	11.6%	5.3%	7.0%	1.3%	2.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	68.7%	16.4%	6.1%	4.8%	1.3%	2.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	66.5%	18.7%	6.5%	4.5%	1.9%	1.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	64.8%	18.5%	6.8%	5.2%	2.8%	1.7%	0.3%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2020 at 76.2% and lowest in 2015 at 61.5%. Overall it fell from 75.5% in 2009 to 64.8% in 2024, down 10.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Plainfield: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 6.8% in 2024, up 4.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 9.4% to 5.2% of workers (down 4.2 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2022 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Plainfield

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Plainfield?

The bars show when commuters in Plainfield 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		5.6%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		16.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		19.7%
7:30-7:59 AM		5.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.2%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Plainfield is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across New Jersey. Early starts are more common than in New Jersey: 14.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Jersey: 44.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.5%) 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 Plainfield, 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 Plainfield 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 Plainfield 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	Plainfield	New Jersey	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:48 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:25 AM	7:49 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:28 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:26 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:51 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:51 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:18 AM	7:49 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:18 AM	7:50 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:16 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:16 AM	7:50 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Plainfield were on the road by 7:16 AM, 15 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). That goes against the trend across New Jersey, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Plainfield now leave 22 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 Plainfield has moved 7 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Plainfield in the whole series.

How does Plainfield's commute time compare?

Metric	Plainfield	New Jersey	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	27.8 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	6.8%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.7%	2.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	5.2%	8.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Plainfield is 27.8 minutes, longer than the 26.2 minutes in New Jersey.

5.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 8.1% in New Jersey. 1.7% commute by walking, lower than the 2.6% in New Jersey.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Plainfield, NJ Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

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

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Plainfield, NJ	55,158	27.8 min #2/3	6.8% #3/3	7:16 AM #1/3
North Plainfield, NJ	22,787	27.9 min	9.3%	7:25 AM
South Plainfield, NJ	24,492	27.4 min	16.4%	7:47 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Plainfield, New Jersey.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 231 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $7,172 at a typical national wage. That's 6% more than the typical New Jersey commuter spends.

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

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Plainfield, 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.