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Disclosure: Google employee, but opinions are my own. Did Google really transform Mountain View in the way that it proposes for San Jose, though? The Google
by danans 8y ago
Disclosure: Google employee, but opinions are my own.
Did Google really transform Mountain View in the way that it proposes for San Jose, though? The Google campus in Mountain View still looks like a dressed up suburban business park to me, far away from public mass transit, just as it has always been. It relies on a private bus system to get many employees to work, which most other major Google offices don't need due to the effective mass transit (NYC, London, Zurich, etc.)
What is proposed for the San Jose campus seems far more urban, sited adjacent to a real mass transit station, like basically all the other major Google offices in the world outside of Mountain View.
EDIT: BTW, I'm not disparaging the Mountain View campus and private bus system. I've used both plenty, and they are a locally optimum solution for Google, given the lack of mass transit access, and the reality there is not enough parking for Google's high office population density. But a lot of what's there seems like duct tape and chewing gum workarounds on top of the mid-century suburban, car-centric model for siting work, housing, and transportation.
- joe_the_user 8y agoWell, given that most mass transit in the US is effectively broken, Google may still have to pay for it's private transit. San Jose light rail is pretty worthless, like most light rail installed in the US - light rail is an easy approach that is guaranteed to always be slower than street traffic.
- romwell 8y ago>light rail is an easy approach that is guaranteed to always be slower than street traffic. That alone wouldn't have been half bad, but with the ultra-low coverage / density of this network, it becomes useless for 95% of the people living in the city. For example, in North San Jose, my 4.5-mile commute would take 12 minutes by car, 25 minutes by bicycle, and a whopping 75 minutes by public transportation. At that point, one might as well walk (90 minutes).
- jogjayr 8y agoYou'd think that over longer distances, it might be faster than biking, but you'd be wrong. Downtown MTV to Campbell takes about 1hr 15m, which is how long it takes you to bike the same route.
- not2b 8y agoI live in Campbell and work in MV. You are right, of course, but the reason is that the light rail route is ridiculously inefficient for that trip. It first goes way northeast, to Milpitas, before heading south. It's so bad that, depending on schedules, you can get from MV to Campbell faster by taking Caltrain to SJ and then switching to light rail at Diridon (but you pay more).
- hadlock 8y agoI've actually gotten off at Palo Alto station a couple of times and biked the difference between it and Mountain View, and made it to the office before my coworkers, who were taking the non-baby bullet. Between accel/deaccel and loading the local train is better than traffic, but roughly equal to a good road bike.
- quicklime 8y agoWhat's crazy is that a fit cyclist on a road bike can easily beat a local Caltrain (stops at every station) all the way from San Francisco! For example, travelling from Google's SF office to the Googleplex in MTV on the weekend will take about 2 hours and 45 mins via Caltrain/buses, and 2.5 hours via SF2G's Bayway route (http://sf2g.com/bayway.html http://sf2g.com/bayway.html).
- usaar333 8y agoI can't think of any light rail systems that beat a reasonably fit cyclist. This is true even when you compare biking to SF's Muni Subway systems. People just take light rail since few want to bike places, let alone at "workout pace"
- 8y ago
- samcheng 8y agoThe proposed site is near stations for both Caltrain and BART. Those are significantly more effective transit systems than the VTA light rail (which I agree is terrible).
- dpark 8y ago> light rail is an easy approach that is guaranteed to always be slower than street traffic. In what way? This seems clear for light rail that shares lanes with traffic, but that’s not always a given. Seattle light rail has quite a bit of right-of-way that is unshared with car traffic and therefore faster than car traffic during peak hours (at least for certain segments). I lived in Jena, Germany for a while and the light rail there was similar. Most of the railway was dedicated and where it was shared, rail got priority over cars (lights switched rapidly to allow rail through).
- hanniabu 8y agoEverything in the US is broken, not just the transit.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoThat's...a shockingly pessimistic view of the world's sole superpower.
- zeruch 8y agoThat is a fairly fractured statement. Lightrail actually connects DTSJ with several areas people live in (e.g. Sunnyvale, Campbell) and its transit station is Diridon, which also includes Amtrak, CalTrain, several bus lines and a taxi stand. Google picked the only spot in the south bay with an actual transit presence of any real heft.