Apparently, you have never driven in another major city? Have you tried the commute to Chicago? There is a reason >300,000 people there take the metra trains every day to downtown.
Yup. Seattle is terrible compared to some hypothetical ideal that doesn't exist anywhere in reality. Portland? LA? San Francisco? Chicago? New York? Driving in any major city in the US during rush hour is an unmitigated nightmare. Seattle doesn't have the geography to add a bunch of a bypass highways or to increase the number of lanes on major highways (even if those things helped), building out transit is the only way things get better.