All Sorts of Transportation
Friday, June 01, 2007, at 07:49AM
By Eric Richardson
I'm sitting in the San Jose airport right now, after having yesterday attended the Google Developer Day. It's a quick trip to Silicon Valley, flying up yesterday and back today.
For some reason I'm still amazed by getting around without a car. Over the course of this trip I think I've taken non-auto transport from six different providers. My trip has been:
- Metro Red Line (subway) from Pershing Square to North Hollywood
- Burbank Bus from North Hollywood to the Burbank Airport
- Southwest (plane) from Burbank to San Jose
- VTA shuttle bus from San Jose Airport to the Light Rail Station
- VTA Light Rail into Downtown San Jose
- Charter bus from San Jose to Mountain View (Google's transport of choice for getting people up to the evening at Google HQ)
- Walk from Google to Downtown Mountain View (2.5 miles or so on a very pleasant evening)
- Caltrain (commuter rail) from Mountain View to San Carlos
- Meet up with the friend I'm staying with in San Carlos, a few miles from his house
- This morning we got coffee in San Carlos, then I walked two blocks to the Caltrain station
- Caltrain from San Carlos to Santa Clara
- VTA shuttle bus to the airport
Now I'm sitting here in San Jose, and I'll likely backtrack my Burbank Bus to the Red Line legs to finish out the trip.
All of it's been super-convenient and easy. Much better than taking a cab or worrying about a car.