ISSUES > TRANSPORTATION

There is not much the City of Mountain View can do to affect the price of gas, but transportation issues are vitally important to the quality of life we enjoy. There are ways the City can make public transit easier within the City, but of course it comes at a cost. Palo Alto has a community shuttle, but it costs over a million dollars a year. We have invested heavily in our transit Center.   Years ago Mountain View helped finance the light rail service that now terminates in Mountain View and we worked hard to become a stop on the Caltrain Baby Bullet.

The City must also take transportation into account in its land use planning. If more commercial and office development is approved, it brings with it many more employees. Many times, the developers will provide incentives to the new employees to use public transit in exchange for being allowed to build a larger complex.  While this may indeed be a reasonable practice, the City must also take measures to ensure that those new employees are using the public transit being offered.  Likewise,  if there are insufficient homes in Mountain View for these new workers, they must commute, clogging the freeways, burning fossil fuels and worsening everyone's quality of life. There is a fine balance that must not be forgotten when such land use decisions are made.