Great, another 175 people (including their family) will be commuting and/or moving to Mountain View. City council when will you put on the brakes? Sorry USGS employees.

Ames is RIGHT off of 101. There's a good chance that some of those 175 people are already commuting past MV anyway.

And - how do you know some of them don't live in MV already?

From a commute perspective, NASA Ames is a location with better freeway access (US-101, SR-85 and SR-237) than the current USGS campus on Middlefield Road in Menlo Park.

NASA Ames also provides shuttle bus service from the Mountain View Transit Center (Caltrain depot and VTA Light Rail terminus), plus there is a VTA Light Rail station at Manila Drive. It is better served by mass transit.

Also, the current Menlo Park location also had to contend with extra automobile traffic at certain hours relating to Menlo-Atherton High School as well as the VA hospital campus on Willow Road.

Sardine,

I don't believe Moffett Field is in Mountain View.

Bike Commuting to Moffet is easier than to Menlo Park. The Stevens Creek Trail, Bay Trail and Guadalupe River trail provide good access so the move may actually reduce car trips and increase bike trips.

the nasa/bayshore station is most likely still the least used one in the entire light rail system. If there's only 60 rides per day it appears to be not very convenient for potential users.

I'm glad their rent will be cheaper, but anyone currently living in Mountain View is aware of the already horrible traffic pile ups, especially crossing over 101 to Google and the mobile home park. It's so bad they're proposing building a bus lane, although I'm not sure where that will go and how it will help. Maybe the Moffett Field site will be another 101 exit south?

It's gotten so much quieter now that people forget. For many years, Moffett Field was an extremely busy military base alongside a busy NASA research location. Now NASA has cut the Ames budget considerably and the Naval Air Station has been decommissioned. But the infrastructure is still there, but just little used. The on base housing is idled due to TCE incursion in that particular area. Google has an agreement for a monster set of offices and permission to build apartments there. Even with that, the place will only be used at a fraction of what it once was.

Moffett Field has TWO freeway exits, Moffett Blvd and its South Gate/Ellis Street connection. Moffett Field has as much connectivity to roadways as does the entire North Bayshore area.

I sure hope Google is paying NASA market rates for the land lease where it will build
these new offices....

Moffett Field is in a separate postal zone inbetween Mountain View and Sunnyvale. The maps provided by the city of Mountain View still show it as a naval air station. Time to update the maps!

@Moffett Field (resident of another community) is correct.

Moffett Field was far more active in the Eighties and Nineties and is currently underutilized compared to that era. It is equipped to absorb the influx of USGS employees.

NASA has operated a shuttle bus from downtown Mountain View's Caltrain station since the Nineties, so there's no change there. VTA Light Rail is a new addition since that era as well as the Stevens Creek Trail.

SR-237 was upgraded to full freeway status in the mid-Nineties from the older Alviso-Milpitas Road, built to Interstate standards, so again, another improvement in terms of commuter access.

Those who have lived for some time in Mountain View will also remember more flight operations out of Moffett Field. Today, it is rather sporadic.

Good if you like peace and quiet, but one should remember that this was once a busy naval air station and the infrastructure was built to handle a much larger population at NASA Ames/Moffett Field.

I'm somewhat surprised that the land at Moffett is suitable for the USGS. There are large air releases and arcjet rumblings for tests and I have no idea what the subsoil is like. It's a research base, where active science is pursued and I would think sensitive seismology equipment might have some interference. However, I have no clue what is was like in the other location. I'm very glad to have them nearby.
The old USGS was a beautiful campus. Hopefully, they are talking about areas of Moffett that are slated to come down so new buildings can be installed(and before the next big one hits!!)

A bit off topic, but Moffett Federal Airfield and NASA Ames Research Center are neither in Mountain View nor Sunnyvale. Moffett is a US Government reservation in unincorporated Santa Clara County. It has two zip codes, 94043 and 94035, which are shared with Mountain View and Sunnyvale respectively. ZIP codes are often, but not always exclusive to one city. Over the years, it has been referred to as being "In" Mountain View AND Sunnyvale, depending on the reference. Before it was "Moffett" it was "Sunnyvale NAS". The former Onizuka AFB was also previously called "Sunnyvale" AFB. That said, NASA Ames has generally always been referred to being in Mountain View. AFAIK, the housing that is still there is fully utilized. The TCE plume that has affected the North Whisman/Wagon Wheel neighborhood and Moffett Field has never stopped people from living there. To me it makes sense for the USGS to move to Moffett. The facility in Menlo Park seems to be underutilized and is worth a ton of money. Back in 2010, I attended some Census training there and it seemed like the place was a ghost town. It's nice to see the government consolidating operations to save money instead continuing to feed a hungry campus with our tax dollars.

Is "TIRED and True" council candidate Abe*Koga still opposing any housing being added out toward this area of North Bayshore, North of 101? Her opinion on the direction of adding housing seemed to be rejected by who got elected to council in 2014. Has Abe*Koga changed her opinion on this, or is she still stuck in NO?

The proper balance of micro apartments (studios), small one and two bedroom apartments or owner condominiums could help us all out (affordability, traffic, work/life balance and other issues).

Isn't anyone else miffed that the government has a rule that it must charge itself market rates on property that it owns? That seems to me to be kind of stupid if the idea is to keep costs down. Then it goes off and charges it's own departments ridiculous rent amounts....which we all agree is ridiculous. Makes no sense. If they want to rent the property to private renters, then the market rate makes sense. But charging that kind of money to it's own departments makes little sense to me.