> The US is really big and a lot of people have rural 30+ minute commutes

The size of the country in which a commute is contained is immaterial to the length of that commute. What you mean is not "the US is big" but "things are really far apart in the US". Which they are, but precisely because of car-centric (car-only, actually) design.

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retired 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Things being far apart in the US predates cars. Rail made that possible.

	▲	jeromegv 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Rails encouraged density around the train stations. Rail is not responsible for the car sprawling type of communities which are mostly a 20th century phenomenon.