The 'remote' neighbourhoods, generally commuted via trains or trams, could themselves be designed to be walkable:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

So your work neighbourhood is walkable and your home/sleeping neighbourhood are walkable, it's just your commute that you don't perhaps walk (or cycle). Pre-WW2 / pre-car towns and villages outside of major metropolitan areas were reachable by train, but themselves pedestrian-based.

In practice there are various things that people tend to value about being able to live in less dense neighborhoods, so it's not surprising that they'd be willing to sacrifice travel time to achieve this.

Given that some people strongly prefer (or at least appear to strong prefer) aspects of those lower density residential areas, it seems as though faster travel enabling those people to live a life they enjoy has benefits to them, even if it doesn’t save them time as compared to living in a denser place they’d not like as much.