Yes. There are widely-used rail systems in the majority of the cities with the worst traffic. If you reframe the question to how far you can get by any transit mode, the result looks very different in Seattle, which has some of the worst transit outcomes in the country, compared to NYC, which is not bad.
The first line of the article and the time this was posted both rule out anything but a personal vehicle in my mind. It's Friday afternoon and I want to leave work early means I'm going camping or something similar. Caltrain won't even get me to a relaxing weekend in Monterey, much less to a camp site in the Sierras.
My commute is what it is. 45 minutes to drive 12 miles sucks, but it only really bothers me when I'm going somewhere other than home.
