I wouldn't commute for 2.5 hours each day if there were any way in the world to avoid it. Even in the initial situation you describe, I'd have had spouse dropping me off at work, a park and ride, or some other place that made the commute tolerable. 2.5 hours is just too much.
By contrast, my car commute is 15 minutes each way, while my walk and bus commute is 35 minutes each way. 20 minutes of that is the walking (which I love, even in the cold), there's no stress in traffic with the bus, and work completely subsidizes my bus pass, so I do that.
Assuming your commute isn't horribly long distance-wise, you'll probably be doing similar amounts of maintenance on the car. Depreciation probably goes a little, but not much faster. So your choice is really between transit costs and gas plus car depreciation costs, and if transit is cheaper, weighing the cost to you of spending 2.5 hours against .83 hours.