North Santa Clara County must pay taxes to support VTA but when VTA is basically doing nothing for the north of the county, is reducing service, I find it interesting that they expect us to support their cause.

It is about time that Mountain View and Palo Alto started working together on this issue rather than as separate entities.

@PA Resident,

We'll start working together as a single entity once you give us access to Foothills Park. Let us know when we can get started.

I can't make the meeting, but I hope someone asks about the roundabout routing of proposed route 40. It serves Downtown Mountain View, but does so in a cumbersome way, by taking the scenic tour via Rengstorff and Shoreliine. I would like to suggest a more direct routing via California and Castro. The market for the 40 as being a connection between Downtown Los Altos and San Antonio Road (which is not adequately served by the 52) and Downtown Mountain View (with trip generators such as VTA light rail, a Kaiser satellite facility and many restaurants). This market is not well served either by the existing or proposed networks.

@Parks

Great reply to elitist Palo Alto. I couldn't agree with you more. Maybe we should organize protests at the entrance to Foothills Park.

There should also be a protest against all the reductions in service planned which as being sold as a new plan rather than service cutbacks.

As an interesting exercise, figure out how to attend this meeting (from home to the Historic Adobe Building by 6pm, and then from the Historic Adobe Building after 8pm back home) using public transit. Is it faster to walk? Did you end up using the (non-VTA) MV community shuttle? Will the new route system make it better or worse?

VTA's pattern seems to be to reduce north county service until local communities create their own local shuttles to serve the needs of those communities, and then VTA drops its own service completely because it can't compete with the free local shuttles.

@Parks

Relax. Foothills Park is okay, but not great. Both Los Trancos and Monte Bello are better and offer nicer views. Plus all three are all connected by trails.

@Rick,

It's more the principle of it. They want to unite with us, but they keep their own special, private park. Since it's not that good, it shouldn't be a problem for them to open it up to us.

Parks.

I hear your concern and I am not commenting on the reasoning for this decision, but it is historical and came about long before I moved to Palo Alto and quite possibly long before you moved to Mountain View.

I think it is sad that you are holding this historical situation as a reason for not doing something sensible between two neighbors in sorting out a situation that affects both city residents.

If you want to protest outside Foothill Park then fine. But that is absolutely not going to sort out the public transportation issue which should be high on the agenda of two cities which are both suffering from deplorable traffic issues made a lot worse by VTA reducing service.

@PA Resident,

No, you are the only people that can change that policy, not Mountain View residents. So, if you want our sympathy or cooperation on an issue you care about, it's an appropriate time for you to offer us a token of your goodwill.

Let us know when you're ready.

@Parks

Or maybe--just maybe--working together to improve transit is an issue that both Mountain View residents and Palo Alto residents care about, and Palo Alto doesn't need to bribe us to cooperate on this issue.

It's not a bribe, it's a gesture of goodwill among neighbors looking for cooperation. As it stands now, our help is asked for when things are inconvenient for Palo Alto, yet in good times we're not good enough to share their private park. Doesn't sound neighborly to me.

So, trying to get this thread back to topic, did anyone attend last night's meeting and if so, what did people comment on?

I agree that MV and PA should unite to oppose transit cutbacks. The issue of Foothills Park is a red herring. And for what it's worth, MV refused to help pay for the land back when PA was trying to raise enough to buy it, so it seems reasonable that we don't have access to it.

The bus routes, however, are still in play, so all concerned should get out and protest. VTA is responsive to a sufficient display of concern.

So, what happend at the meeting?

I was not able to attend, but my wife did. She didn't take notes, but she did mention that some public comments focused on specific complexes (e.g., senior apartments or transit-centric apartments) that were losing their VTA service, or on neighborhoods that were losing a significant fraction of their VTA service, or the difference in accessibility (e.g., low-floor buses) between VTA equipment and community shuttle equipment.

PA is bad for preventing MV from accessing the beautiful Foothills Park. Los Altos is terrible for charging us access to use their library!! Of course, MV has not restricted either city from ANYTHING! So, yeah. PA is unlikely to be reasonable in any intercity cooperation.

I thought Los Altos and the county library backpedaled on the "non-resident" fee. Of course the problem would go away if we could get rid of our balkanized library system and combine city and county libraries into one countywide system.

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