SF is cherry picked, the most expensive place in the US. I live in Philadelphia and the commute time and cost is substantially lower. NYC would be the most appropriate comparison, and they get to work with nearly 20 minutes less commute.
I bring up commute because many people have long commutes because they simply cant afford to live closer.
Generally when the median is greater than the mean, it's because there's a long tail to the left dragging the mean down. I expect that the opposite is true: there is a long tail to the right, with a small number of people who have exceptionally long commutes.
So I'd expect the median to be lower, like it is for salaries.
There are a lot of people who do 90 minute+ commutes for sure. Even for relatively small commutes you end up with a fixed cost of about 20 minutes for just going to the station from your home or leaving to go to the office, so 30 minutes is good.
It's possible to live close to your office if you're willing to live far from trains a lot of the time though. Living 20 minutes from any station instead of 5 easily cuts 30% off the rent
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