If I had to commute from Gilroy or Morgan Hill to Mountain View, my first thought would be to take Caltrain. I wonder whether the travel time for this express bus can be competitive with Caltrain.

If this is going to succeed it need to be well advertised, marketed and promoted in so many ways as to insure that every potential rider gets to hear about it. If people don't know about it, then they will never try it out.

The $4 fare is attractive, how does it compare with Caltrain?

This is a great addition and progress on the public transportation front.

Ideally, people will learn about the bus when it passes them on the highway.

$4 is cheaper than Caltrain. Caltrain also makes only 3 trips south of SJ.

It would be slower than Caltrain.

But VTA doesn't want to send their money to another agency. So they come up with a proposal to duplicate existing service.

Of course, it would be more effective to pay Caltrain to increase late evening service frequency. Or add a late bus that runs from Diridon to Gilroy. But this isn't about efficiency. It's about growing your empire.

Another silly idea to justify VTA. How will the bus's be any quicker? Because they get to use the HOV lane? Wont make that much difference.

I disagree, sorry.

Who would have thought that Google could run a successful bus service from San Francisco to the Shoreline area? However, it works. People who work for Google live in San Francisco because of this. I imagine that people who work in this area might be attracted to buying a more affordable family home in Gilroy rather than a condo or townhouse nearby if they can ride a luxury bus where they can work, sleep, surf the net, etc. rather than being stuck in traffic.

Google buses are for Google employees but there are a lot more companies in the area who can't use the Google buses. A VTA bus service would be for everyone. It would be for the high tech workers and also the janitors or restaurant workers in Mountain View. I still think this is a good idea, but the word has to get out and the pilot has to run long enough to get people into the habit of using it and secure enough to enable people to make decisions to move out there.

Sitting in a bus stuck in traffic as a passenger is not the same as sitting in a car stuck in traffic as a driver. The bus doesn't need to be faster, it just needs to be convenient and fast enough to be feasible. People actually can get work done while riding the bus to/from work, it is productive "work" time.

TANSTAAFL. Who pays? Will the employers count the travel time as hours worked? Wouldn't it be cheaper to lay track alongside Caltrains ROW and just get people into those empty trains I see now? Many questions should be asked about this issue. People need to be held responsible for what they do, with termination a possibility if their ideas fail.

The Voice has strayed from its mandate to serve the citizens of Mountain View. Just how will an expensive bus route from Morgan Hill and Gilroy benefit Mountain View commuters? How could it possibly be better than CalTrain? Will it reduce traffic jams on Shoreline, or San Antonio, or Grant Rd, or whatever? All political problems are local, so the Voice would do well to figure ways to make it a lot easier for automobiles to navigate their way around MV during both commute and school hours.