This is great news! In addition to making Mountain View more accessible to those who have trouble getting around on their own, just getting more people out of their cars and using alternative transportation will be great for the environment and community.

Will the shuttle system finally integrate with the Palo Alto shuttles, or is this only for people trying to get to downtown Mountain View?

MVGo is funded by Google, and mainly serves to shuttle employees between Caltrain and the Google campus. Just look at the route map and see for yourself. Reducing Google employee drivers is a good goal, but let's also be honest with ourselves that the objective here isn't about helping the elderly get around.

Mountain View and Palo Alto residents cross the city boundaries all the time. Any improvements to one should be done to coordinate with the other.

Even Google is buying office space in Palo Alto. We need to work together.

PA Resident, we'll work together with you once you all let us into the private park for Palo Alto residents, Foothills Park. Let's call it a show of good faith, then we can move forward. Otherwise, you only care when you can get something from us.

If only we had some sort of agency that could coordinate transportation efforts across city boundaries in the Santa Clara Valley.

:-/

It would be great to extend the operating hours earlier and later so that mountain residents can take the ride to cal train station to commute to work.

I had bad experience waiting for the shuttle . It takes for too long to get a shuttle.I tried to catch this shuttle twice and both the times, the wait was too long and I decided to walk and the shuttle never came even after I reached home by foot. I have no idea what kind of ppl use this so called free service which is completely useless.

Hi everyone. There is some confusion with this article. There are two independent shuttle systems in Mountain View.

MVGo is funded by the MV Transportation Demand Management group made up of businesses primarily in North Bayshore. It is primarily intended for commuters, runs mostly NORTH of Evelyn, is free to anyone to use, and was intended to help with last-mile connections from bus, light rail and the train stations. The website for the MVGo Commuter shuttle service is MVGo.org. MVGo, the commuter shuttle is expanding services for 2019.

The Mountain View Community Shuttle is geared toward residential use around town and primarily runs SOUTH of Central Expressway during NON-commuting hours. It is funded by Google in partnership with the City of Mountain View. We only run electric vehicles and it was designed for people to get around the City of Mountain View without needed to drive or park in downtown. The website for that is MVCommunityShuttle.com. The Mountain View Community Shuttle is NOT expanded services for 2019.

Sorry about the typos. I was trying to be quick from my phone. If you have any questions about the shuttles, you can get more information at their respective websites. Both are free for anyone to use, but they are designed to run at different times. The Mountain View Community Shuttle DOES consult and coordinate with both MVGo and VTA.

Mike's the MAN! Mike Kasperzak that is, former MV Council member (again, & again: again & again). He was instrumental in 'gently twisting the arms' of the employers North of 101, to start and then fund this!

thank you MIKE!
2012 news article
Web Link
2014 news article
Web Link

So Mtn View is so large and hard to coordinate that even the 3 public bus MVgo, Community, VTA not to mention uber lyft VTA private shuttles, and plus the 15 or so private bus companies for the businesses in the area are't enough.... And we are proud of this fact?

And herein lies a great big part of the problem.

First of all is someone who is more concerned with another topic (Foothills Park) than they are about a useful coordination that they refuse to even consider an alliance with Palo Alto. This topic is something that took place long before I was around. It is a red herring that will not solve traffic problems.

The second issue is the complexity of having multiple agencies attempting to do public transportation. The fact that the City of Mountain View spokesperson admits that the two shuttles are completely separate with separate goals and separate websites (or apps) shows complete lack of coordination.

For successful transportation a user wants to be able to look in one place for the best method of getting where he wants to go. He does not want to plow through the various options, by that stage he would probably have called an Uber!

Make it easy, make it comprehensive, make it efficient and make it something that provides an alternative, and make it cross borders so that riders can go where they need to go.

Unfortunately Ryan you do not know the history behind Footlands Park, so let me educate you. In the late 50s the family that owned the park land wanted to sell and developers were frothing at the mouth. Palo Alto proposed buying the land and turning it into a park, but none of the other local cities (including MV) or the county wanted to chip in. Palo Alto voters then decided to take out a bond for a massive sum to buy out the land by themselves since nobody else chipped in. Now 60 years later MV residents are complaining that they can’t use the park. Well you didn’t help buy the land, you don’t help maintain the park, so you don’t get to help use it. You are welcome to use any of the other dozens of parks in PA, except for one - the one that PA paid for because nobody else would.

See, both of you don't want to address the concerns of Mountain View residents when it's not about giving you all something you want from us. PA Resident, you seem to have plenty of time advocating for Mountain View to do something for you, why not advocate for your city to do something for its neighbors? Just take a look at that wonderful neighborly post from JR.