Car ownership rates in cities have nothing to do with being rich enough to own a car. New York is one of the wealthiest cities in the country but has the lowest rate of car ownership.
> Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car,[1] might be considered better than one where many people have to endure two-hour public transit commutes
You are misinterpreting the data, the 113 minute figure is for ALL public transit travel, not just commuting.
> That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit use, and public transit is slow.
Where's your evidence for that claim? It seems plausible to me that these countries have a larger fraction of the population living in large metro areas, and big cities inevitably involve longer commutes whether you drive or take transit.
Public transit is not intrinsically slow. If your city has decent transit it is usually much, MUCH faster than driving in rush hour traffic. I live 10 minutes away from work by train; the corresponding drive would take 30 minutes during rush hour. If you want to get from the suburbs to downtown for work, it would take you only 30 minutes on the suburban rail whereas driving would take 90.
You're also missing one the main points of public transit, which is that it is compatible with density whereas auto culture is fundamentally not. In denser cities it is physically impossible for every person with a 9-5 job to be in a single occupancy car on the road at the same time. There is literally not enough space for that to happen. It's not about deciding, as a matter or public policy, whether you want everyone to be able to drive or not. You literally CANNOT, within the laws of physics, accomplish that feat.