London, Paris, NYC and Tokyo all have a comprehensive subway system and light rail covering the extended metro area. For many parts of LA, driving (or taking a bus through terrible traffic) is the only option.
For LA's drivers, even 37 minutes is pretty bad. [1]
Public transit mitigates the environmental and public safety effects of traffic, but the "wasting your life in a slow-moving vehicle" problem is much worse with public transit (even rail).
And no, that time is not reusable for reading, working, etc. unless you're so far out on the line (or your system is so "wastefully" overprovisioned) that getting a seat at rush hour is a realistic possibility. It's just as "gone" as it is for drivers in gridlock. So I'd rather lose less time, and that means driving (or making more money to afford higher rent closer to the center).
If we want to design cities for ideological gratification (like SF) anything goes. If we want to design cities for low housing prices and low commute times, well, the worst case for freeway sprawl (LA) is beating the best case for walkable subway utopia (NY) by 20 minutes/day.
[0] http://origin-states.politico.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazo...
[1] http://la.curbed.com/2014/10/8/10037514/mapping-the-average-...
I can read a book or a newspaper while in a tramway or a bus only if I'm standing up, otherwise I get car sickness. I very rarely choose to sit down when using public transport for exactly this reason (strangely enough I can read while sitting down when riding the train).
It's particularly bad in the top of double decker buses, can't read there but still like to got there for the extra space and the view.
Apart from the odd occasion when I miss my stop because distracted, reading is perfect for making the journey fly by. I wouldn't want to try anything serious because the block of time is too small, but "mere" fiction is wonderful.
Sometimes I'll play on my phone instead, or just close my eyes and semi-snooze listening to music. If I could park in central London and the traffic was light I still probably wouldn't choose to take my car there and back. Which is a pretty cool place to be imo
This data is from 2014 at best. I would wager the situation is a lot worse now especially given the construction that has happened or is happening (e.g. widening the 405 or the new metro line being built by the airport).
Or to put it another way, at least you have the option of commutes. I much prefer my 7 hour a week commute from Oakland into SF to a slightly shorter drive. And although the bay bridge is a joke during rush hour, you can still grab the bus and read the whole time.
Granted, if the bus is packed it can be difficult or impossible to get anything useful done also.
People shouting in to their phones however... I feel like it's the kind of person with zero self awareness or care for their external, social impact that ruin it for the rest of us :P
Also, you don't have a pair of headphones? :P
Also remember that New York is a set of islands. This already puts it at an efficiency disadvantage.
Berlin and Munich are two cities that come to mind with excellent public transport and great commute times. Most people commute in less than 30 minutes even from less central areas.
BART is loud, rattly, screechy, wobbly, and generally feels like it could fall apart any moment. I wonder if even third world countries are able to produce trains that bad. But in developed parts of the world, trains are quiet and clean and run smoothly.
In general when Americans say they don't like public transit, they mean they don't like American public transit, because it is so badly done in America.
The proposal here isn't to do public transit better, though. It's to get more people to use the existing, shitty public transit by pricing them out of driving.