Let's say employer can dictate when you arrive at work. Then your employer has to pay you salary for the time you spend commuting. The result should be either flexible hours or employers finding arrival times that don't overlap too much.
It's overly simplistic idea, but you get the point?
Yeah, schools are probably the culprit more than employers are. Many employers have flex schedules, but I've never seen a school that lets students learn starting at 11 a.m. Parents pick jobs that fit around their kids' school schedules; in that sense, schools have more power over when they commute than even their bosses do.
I also think you're too easy on employers. Many, many employers make decisions that affect commute length aside from when work hours take place. If McDonald's pays its employees minimum wage and then expects them to work in the expensive part of town, it has just mandated a longer commute since there is no way the employee could live in the neighborhood she works in. If that doubles the commute time of the employee, it doubles the stress on the transportation infrastructure.
I would argue that the current U.S. policy of giving employers zero responsibility when employees have hour-plus commute times gives them a huge pass on a negative externality, on both the community (transportation infrastructure) and on their employees (wasted hours on the train/highway, higher transportation costs). If it's not a good idea for the government to do something about this, we should at least apply social pressure to employers to be more responsible. It seems to be working a bit for improving carbon emissions and parental leave, and I think it could work for unreasonable commuting arrangements. Employers should brag about the low average commute times of their employees.
There was some article way back that stater short commute is one of the few things how you can spend money to be happier.
Yes! If employers had to pay more to compensate employees who insisted on living closer, this might start to solve the underlying problems. Here's some more food for thought:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-c...
Company has to be within acceptable commute range for the employee. Lets say our company needs several employees. It is necessary to have critical mass of employable people living inside that range. The problem here is that 15min commute vs. 45min commute doesn't matter much to the employer.
So companies try to go near major traffic routes at the outskirts of big cities. There employable population and cheap property converges.