Sydneysiders are prepared to commute for longer than anyone else in the country – a byproduct of the property boom – according to new research.

While a “20-minute city” has long been aspirational for cities such as Melbourne, it’s a 40-minute city that might be “a starting aspiration” for the harbour city, a University of Sydney survey into national transport has found.

The University of Sydney Business School’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS) data from its Transport Opinion Survey found Australians on average would be willing to commute 37 minutes each way to work, from 34 minutes in Western Australia to 40 minutes in NSW.

A 40 minute commute to Central Station by train could be a trip from Blacktown, or a drive from Manly, or a bus trip from some parts of Balmain.

Part of the reason longer commutes are tolerated is high property prices – something ITLS professor David Hensher was “sure” had contributed to more acceptance of longer commutes in NSW.

It’s a cultural thing that [some] people are willing to do a two-hour plus commute every day.Andrew Wilson, Domain Group

Providing a connected city with 40-minute commutes could be done “not necessarily through a focus on the CBD only but looking at locations of activities throughout a metro area that can support the needs of the population. We can create [dozens] of cities throughout the metro where most activities are satisfied,” Dr Hensher said.

NSW residents were happy to commute for the longest out of all the states surveyed. Source: University of Sydney

Just 9 per cent of NSW residents surveyed believed that transport in their local area will be better in a year’s time.

Within 10 kilometres of Sydney, there are no suburbs with a median house price below $1 million or with a median apartment price below $600,000, Domain Group data shows.

Domain Group senior economist Andrew Wilson said long commutes for many in Sydney had become “compulsory, we don’t have a lot of choice”.

“You have got to live where you can afford to live, and the cost of travel – including fuel, loss of time – pushes Sydney to the bottom of the barrel in terms of housing affordability,” Dr Wilson said.

But he said a move towards apartment living to shift away from the commute is in progress, with higher pressure on inner and middle-ring suburbs’ rent.

“We’ve seen development as far down to the South West as Oran Park, and people are still prepared to move there … It’s a cultural thing that [some] people are willing to do a two-hour plus commute every day,” he said.

“It’s a Sydney issue, but if you try and commute in Paris and New York it’s also a complete and utter nightmare. People will build up and live up [in apartments] to get rid of the commute,” he said.

Recent University of NSW research found first home buyers priced out of three-quarters of Sydney and “pushed further down the train line” to get onto the property ladder.

Access to employment, safety and security were explained to be three features affecting home choices among tenants and home owners.

The Grattan Institute’s book City Limits: why Australia’s cities are broken and how we can fix them found some suburbs of Sydney where only 14 per cent of jobs available could be accessed in a 45-minute car trip, with many outer suburbs offering fewer than one in 10 city jobs accessible within an hour on public transport.

Tackling convoluted planning and zoning rules, as well as dealing with resistance to development in inner suburbs, were recommended as starting points.