That should be 20-30 min by bicycle :) is that an option?
Also though, not everyone is able or wants to power their own transportation, and although I think biking is great, I this choosing not to is also perfectly reasonable and should also be respected.
But in both cities, buses have the exclusive use of some road space. This ensures a reliable journey time.
By car? 30 minute drive because of the congestion. Then I either hunt 15 - 30 minutes for parking lot or pay 170 eur/month in a close by cellar of a mall. For comparison monthly ticker for the public transport is only 30 eur.
I, too, have one – with a car I drive about 15 minutes along the innermost “ring” road whereas any combination of public transport would require at least an hour for the worst case scenario. Yes, the trip takes longer in peak traffic; luckily I can avoid those times most of the time – and it's in any case way faster than with public transport.
It was comparatively worse when I had a much shorter commute to school years ago. The 3.5 km trip would consist of more than a kilometre of walking and would at worst take way more than half an hour with buses (including the switch, without one you'd have to walk more than half the distance). Needless to say, I did not prepare for the bad days, and was late quite often.
With a car, it was literally a five minute ride.
In Helsinki, especially before 550, certain trips are lot faster with car. Currenly my school comute is 25min by car and 1h by bus. The fucked up thing is that bus routes are so winding that they compete with bicycle in speed and reach.
To bus to my office, I have a 30 minute bus ride on one of the rapidride busses, then transfer to a king county metro bus. The second bus takes between 0 and 30 minutes to arrive, normally gets stuck in traffic on the route it takes, and arrives near my office in 10 to 30 minutes. This is assuming neither bus is full and picks people up at either stop.
On the best day, I'm on a bus for 40 minutes. On the worst, 90. That's 1.5-3 hours a day dealing with a commute.
Alternatively, if I drive, I leave when I want to and normally arrive in 15-20 minutes. On a good day I save an hour a day driving, and on a bad one almost 2 hours.
I'm all for public transit, when it works efficiently. We currently do not have a rail system that reaches the majority of our population (its being planned though). I can't justify the additional time for my commute, because I'd always have to plan for the worst.
The bright side is sound transit is working on a proposal to expand their existing light rail. I'm all for efficient, timely, and reliable public transportation. I live 4 miles from work. It shouldn't take up to 90 minutes for me to get there.