Consider yourself very lucky. Not everyone has the luxury of working from home, choosing their working hours or living close to public transit or within walking/biking distance from their job (in many areas, the farther you get away from city centers, the cheaper the real estate generally is).

In the NYC area, bumper to bumper traffic is common. It can be caused by an accident or construction that blocks one or more lanes, cars merging on to an already congested highway, etc. These conditions frequently happen even outside of rush hour.