Similar to the Crazy Ideas Thread and Diaspora Roundup Thread, I thought I'd try making a General-Purpose Questions Thread.
The purpose is to provide a forum for asking questions to the community (appealing to the wisdom of this particular crowd) in things that don't really merit their own thread.
I have been believing this for a very long time. I recently went looking for the source of this advice, I couldn't find any - do you have any idea where the source is?
(reason: I have gotten anecdata about how people take advantage of public transport and then shifted to live closer to work and lost their "daily reading hour". AKA this advice had a negative impact on them. Some of the papers I started reading specifically mention bad health, and being overweight leading to other health problems but the happiness discrepancies usually disappear once you correct for health. Another point mentioned was lower back pain while driving and sitting in traffic. which - for someone who rides a bicycle to work, isn't the same problem. I would be keen to update this advice to something more accurate and more specific than "live close to work".)
If you dig down 3 links you find the Commuter's Paradox. I found this paper to use very reasonable controls and explain itself well. Sadly, it doesn't address your question about different modes of transportation.