> Back in America, most people I knew lived and worked in the same general region/city. Perhaps this is a uniquely Dutch problem

This isn't a uniquely Dutch problem. The longest commute you mentioned:

Utrecht -> Eindhoven: 1 hr 4 min (92.2 km)

isn't unheard of in the US. These are the commutes for a cousin, and a friend's uncle:

Colorado Springs, CO -> Denver, CO: 1 hr 19 min (113.5 km)

New Britain, CT -> New York, NY: 2 hr 4 min (177.1 km)

These are memorable though because they are so long. Many of the people I know have far shorter commutes. For example, my mom would drive 30 min (21km). But, these long commutes definitely exist.

In 2019, 10% of US workers had a 1-way commute of over 1hr. (The average times for transit are quite high in the US, but 90% of commutes are by car so a large portion of that 10% are by car).

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

In 2003, 8% of 1-way commutes were over 56 km.

https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf

Sorry, I should have clarified. I'm American and grew up in the DFW area. I know long commutes are not unheard of in the US, but like you mentioned, it is pretty rare for someone to commute that far long term. Generally, I think most people might commute for a year or two and then tend to relocate closer unless they only need to visit the office every so often instead of every single day.

The Northeast US is also an outlier because they have commuter rail that can reliably connect places like DC to Baltimore or NYC to Philly.