I have a commute that I think is bad. Rarely 35 min, but most likely closer to an hour. On bad weeks I could be in the car 2 hours a day. Thats 10 hours a week, more than a full work day. Think about at the end of the year when you have wasted 52 full days. These are 52 days of enjoyable days that are instead replaced with bumper to bumper pissed off driving.
Work productivity goes down since you don't get to the office fresh. Towards the end of the day, when you are tired, you probably wont put in the extra effort since you know you have to save energy for that 1 hour commute. It's really too bad that so much time and energy is lost due to transportation in so many rural areas.
One solution is moving to a big city, where you might get away with a quick bike ride or metro ride to get to work. Or you buy a van and live in it near your work a few days a week. Another solution to save gas money, is to carpool but that comes with the problem of a strict schedule and often inefficient routes and waiting.
