Long commutes are also a subsidy to your employer. If employers paid enough for a similar standard of living down the block from the office, that's what everyone would do.
Granted, this is something of a holdover from Japanese society in the late 20th century where lifetime employment was the norm, and nowadays this practice is becoming slightly less common. For instance, a specialist working for a Japanese company (like myself, a few years back), should expect to pay for their own transportation costs. Frankly, it was worth bearing the cost myself, though, as I did not need to reciprocate loyalty to the company in the same way my coworkers did by spending long hours at the office and participating in mandatory-ish social gatherings that lasted late into the night.
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/14/business/how-em...
If everyone moved within 3 miles of their office it would massively cleanup the traffic commute situation. But we build huge highways which subsidizes people who live far away from their offices.
This kind of thing happens to people a lot. My wife's then employer moved from downtown Washington to Rosslyn, Virginia--not a great difference in distance, but a worse commute. [Edit] I should add that this employer then moved back to Washington, DC. The Rosslyn location had the merit of being close to a Metro station, the new location was a mile or more from one.