Oh, but Lucy. You haven't thought this through very well, or actually explained it well at all apart from describing commuters as a 'bunch of nimbies' which makes no sense at all.
The problem with the trains isn't related to flooding. People are fine with things like that. The story you've seen is the Which? report on people's satisfaction with rail services - overcrowded, delayed, cancelled for often quite rubbish reasons focused on profits rather than customers. As they run local monopolies, there's little opportunity for people to go elsewhere.
People aren't complaining about the fact they have to commute. It is, as you say, part and parcel of commuting. I doubt anyone particularly enjoys it but the economic and housing profile of the South East in particular, but also around other urban centres, promotes this mode.
What people object to is the service they pay for falling far short of acceptable standards. I don't expect a seat on my train. I do expect it not to be cancelled 20% of the time (as it was during January - 'my' afternoon train is the first one South West Trains cancels if anything goes wrong. I object to not being able to get onto three trains in a row due to overcrowding. I object to it when, halfway through a journey, home, the guard suddenly announces that we will be travelling 'express' past my station.
I live where I live (London/Surrey borders - where do I fit in your book?) because I like it here. It's a nicer place to bring up my kid. I have friends and a community here, which I don't have near where I work. I commute into central London four days a week - note, not to a City job, what a boringly stereotyped idea of 'commuters'. I spend exponentially more money locally than I do in central London. I support my local independent bookshop and butcher's. I volunteer locally.
My husband commutes in the other direction - out into Hampshire. How does he fit into your ideas?