Garfield Heights Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:15 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Garfield Heights?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:15 PM

Commute Time Burden in Garfield Heights: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Garfield Heights spend about 43 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 179 hours, about 7.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% more time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 0.4 minutes.

Garfield Heights holds about 0.2% of Ohio's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Garfield Heights would save about 72 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,218 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)
Garfield Heights	21.5 min	42.9 min	179 hrs/yr	$5,546	2,639
Ohio	21.1 min	42.2 min	176 hrs/yr	$5,447	1,212
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.

Garfield Heights Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.5 minutes to get to work in Garfield Heights. That's 4% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Garfield Heights

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Garfield Heights, versus 0.1% in Ohio.

Biking is essentially absent in Garfield Heights, versus 0.3% in Ohio.

Commute Mode Trends in Garfield Heights, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Garfield 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	90.8%	1.5%	2.2%	5.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	91.9%	2.1%	2.5%	3.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	91.7%	2.1%	2.3%	3.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	91.0%	1.7%	2.5%	3.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	91.2%	1.9%	1.8%	4.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	91.2%	2.5%	1.9%	3.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2015	91.1%	1.9%	2.1%	3.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	91.6%	2.2%	1.6%	4.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2017	92.2%	1.9%	1.6%	3.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	92.4%	1.5%	1.5%	3.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	93.0%	1.3%	1.3%	3.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.2%	2.2%	1.1%	2.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	90.5%	3.7%	2.0%	2.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.4%	4.6%	2.3%	1.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.9%	6.6%	2.4%	1.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.6%	9.0%	2.3%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 93.2%. Overall it fell from 90.8% in 2009 to 86.6% in 2024, down 4.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Garfield Heights: its share of workers rose from 1.5% in 2009 to 9.0% in 2024, up 7.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 5.1% to 1.1% of workers (down 4.0 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Garfield Heights

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Garfield Heights?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		9.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		8.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		7.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		3.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		11.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.0%

Garfield Heights Ohio Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Garfield Heights is 12:00-3:59 PM, when 11.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 7.7% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 23.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Ohio: 37.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.3%) 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 Garfield 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 Garfield 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 Garfield Heights next to Ohio 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	Garfield Heights	Ohio	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:33 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:37 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:47 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:39 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:39 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:32 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Garfield Heights were on the road by 7:32 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:38 AM). The shift is sharper than across Ohio, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Garfield Heights now leave 6 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 Garfield Heights has moved 9 minutes earlier.

How does Garfield Heights's commute time compare?

Metric	Garfield Heights	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.5 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	12:00 PM – 03:59 PM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.0%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.1%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Garfield Heights is about the same as in Ohio.

1.1% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.0% in Ohio. 2.3% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Garfield Heights, OH Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Garfield Heights, OH compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Garfield Heights, OH	29,260	21.5 min #2/2	9.0% #1/2	7:31 AM #1/2
Maple Heights, OH	23,249	20.6 min	8.0%	8:02 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Garfield Heights, Ohio.

Is commuting expensive in Garfield Heights, Ohio?

Commuters here spend an estimated 179 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,546 at a typical national wage. That's 2% more than the typical Ohio commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Garfield Heights, Ohio?

Traffic peaks between 12:00 PM – 03:59 PM in Garfield Heights, Ohio. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.