He's from Sydney. In Sydney, having a significant number of your colleagues (and yourself) doing monstrous commutes is incredibly normalised. The house prices and transport situation is just a nightmare.
You tend to not realise just how weird it is unless you moved to Sydney from somewhere else, or until you leave Sydney to go somewhere else...
/spent a year or so living there myself: my commute was actually about 30 mins (Hornsby - Chatswood), SO's was about 1 hour 15 mins each way into the CBD once walking time was added on...
That sounds very accurate from my experiences so far. The trains are significantly better than busses which is why I'm so excited for the new rail system going in near my house. To answer the question above, no, I don't have a family (yet) but I imagine this would make the decision significantly different in favour of time to spend with them.
As a visitor, catching trains in Sydney was great, but taking busses often meant very unpredictable timing, and extremely long travel times to get anywhere. I ended up taking a little over 2 and a half hours from the CBD to North Ryde.
You tend to not realise just how weird it is unless you moved to Sydney from somewhere else, or until you leave Sydney to go somewhere else...
/spent a year or so living there myself: my commute was actually about 30 mins (Hornsby - Chatswood), SO's was about 1 hour 15 mins each way into the CBD once walking time was added on...