You are absolutely correct, but there is a really weird addendum to this.

There have been a bunch of studies trying to measure the relationship between commuting time and (subjective) quality of life. Most of them find exactly what you'd suspect: longer commutes reduce quality of life.

The weird thing is that they found a small uptick at the absolute extreme edges of commuting, like in the 5+ hour a day range. It's still shittier than a 30 minute commute, but it was better than a 4 hour commute. Nobody really seems to know why this is, but it's there.

Either way, I walk to work. There are few better ways to commute, IMHO.

>"Either way, I walk to work. There are few better ways to commute, IMHO."

The bicycle is one of those ways. It's faster and significantly more efficient.

Bicycling also requires more concentration. I regularly read a book while commuting, which is nice.

Personally, my commute would be too short with a bike. I like a good 20-30 minutes between home and work to clear my head and get in/out of the zone. But that's just me.

I could never read a book while walking, at the very most I'll listen to music, but I also wouldn't do that while biking.

Personal limits of multitasking, I guess :-)

I think it depends a lot on the mode of transportation. An hour driving a car is really awful. An hour sitting in transit or a car someone else is driving is ok-ish because you can at least read a book or something. Though a lot of transit is standing room only which is again rather unpleasant. An hour of walking or cycling IMO is not bad if you have a desk job. Much more pleasant way to get exercise than going to a gym all the time, as many car commuters seem to do.