I did the drive/ride thing for a short period when first experimenting with commuting. Guessing the drive was about 7 miles from home and the ride about 17. Parked in a park adjacent to MUP, although MUP wasn't very significant portion of remainder it got me deep into cross town residential. The drive leap frogged me past a section of nasty high density rush hour traffic on the home side. Eventually I tested out taking my bike on light rail. That was 4 bike miles to station, 4 on the rail, then 17 more on bike. In the end there was one last stretch on the work side I had too many close calls with and quit. The area is very industrialized with few options. I looked at various bus routes through that stretch, but the scheduling sucked and I just decided it wasn't a high enough priority. The additional time I spent riding was worth it, but not waiting around for 'connectors' making it longer yet.
Driving part way was never as satisfying as being completely car free for a day.