If your employer dictated where you worked AND where you lived, the time traveling between the two would logically be their responsibility. Since they've only dictated at most one of those two things, I don't see it as reasonable for them to pay you to move between a place they didn't pick and one they did.

My office used to be just outside of Boston. Could I move to Utica, NY and claim that my 8 hour round-trip was the entirety of my work obligation and that I was, by definition, "meeting expectations" merely by driving back and forth every workday?