[bigfishrunning]

I would settle for "available". Where I live, i have a 40 minute commute to work by car. I live in a suburb of a midsize american city.

When i bought my house, i looked into public transportation options. Instead of a 40 minute car ride, i could drive for 5 minutes and then take 3 hours (and 2 bus transfers) to get to my office by bus.

I would love to get some reading done on my commute, and would be willing to spend an hour on a bus or train instead of 40 minutes fighting traffic in my car, but it's just not really feasable. I think this situation is extremely common.

[bluGill]

That is what I'm getting at. Most cities in the US don't have a useful transit system.

though your 40 minute by car commute is something that is unlikely something any invsetment will ever make reasonable.

[alberto467]

Having lived in multiple european cities with decent to good public transport, a 40 minute car commute almost always means you live outside the city. In that case, your public transport experience will just suffer a lot (public transport is more efficient with higher densities of living).

Being outside the city you'll have fewer vectors with less frequency (more than 30mins in between), which will get you in the city somewhere, and from that you'll take city-local public transport to your final destination.

I'd say in this case the 40 min car commute turns into 1h 20, with some luck too.