What if we made cities more affordable, nicer places to live instead of making commuting even more expensive and miserable than it already is?
The spending needs to be on building more housing, better housing, more affordable housing, housing closer to work. Single family or multi family? Whatever the people need, neither will exclusively work if people want both.
If you don't do that, it doesn't matter how miserable you make the commute, people will still do it because the alternative for them is not going to their job and becoming destitute.
If we have zoning requirements for building residences, why not quotas for the number of companies allowed in a city, in a county, in a state? Why the fuck everybody needs to live in a ratcage in NYC, because every fucking oligarch feels like he needs to have his bank HQ in Manhattan? Why can't we have a few dozen smaller high density urban centers instead on this day and age?
something like "sorry Mega Company, we already have MegaCorp and MegaEnterprise here on this city, the quota is over, have you considered PleasantVille for your new HQ? I hear they have a free quota after MBA Business Machines finally fold down and closed their offices there. "
How's the air quality in cities where they do that?