I always used public transit to commute to work, whether it was the Long Island Rail Road, the NYC Subways, or the PATH trains (a small subway system connecting adjacent cities in New Jersey with Manhattan). For all but the first year of my career (subway only), I used the LIRR and one of the two other train systems. The cummute was always long and tiring, subject to delays and crowds and bad weather and labor problems and no A/C in the summer and hot, underground platforms. It was by far the number one reason I ERed.
The total commuting time, after the 25-minute subway-only time each way for the first 9 months of working (I lived in Manhattan), ranged from 60 minutes each way to 90 minutes each way, most of the years closer to 60 minutes on the LIRR and subway. For a short time in 1986, I had the 90-minute trip each way using 2 LIRR trains and the subway (15 hours per week). Then I moved closer to Manhattan.
But after my company relocated to New Jersey in 2001 (before the 9/11 attacks), the commute changed from LIRR+subway to LIRR+PATH, a slightly longer but more tiring commute (because the PATH connection was lousier). I was now up to 75 minutes each way per day, or 12.5 hours per week.
I did that commute for about 11 weeks until I got my part-time, mostly telecommute deal. I had to go to the office only 1 day a week and that lasted for 27 months. But the company ended open-ended telecommuting so I had to go to the office 3 days a week, returning to me much of the horrors of commuting (7.5 hours per week on 3 days). There were some new ones, too, such as the endless use of cell phone yakkers on the trains to make those trips even more annoying.
After 3 1/2 years of that, I reduced my hours so I would have to go to the office only 2 days a week (5 hours of commuting on 2 days). But even that became too much after 17 months so once all the pieces of my ER plan fell into place in 2008, I retired. I needed to reduce my commuting hours to zero.
I hated the commute so much that I told the HR guy in my exit interview that even if the company offered me my old telecommute deal back (I knew it was a non-starter), I would turn it down. That's how much I hated the commute.