I used to live in Palo Alto. There’s VTA (bus) and Caltrain. Stops are few and far between so getting to and from the stops are in and of itself a problem. Buses tend to arrive every 15 minutes (or longer) I believe? Pretty infrequent. And outside peak hours there’s usually like one Caltrain an hour, so missing one really sucks.
I had a colleague who had to travel frequently between Stanford and Berkeley (slightly unusual); it’s a sub-hour drive, but easily takes ~3 hours or more via public transit.
P.S. At least the Valley is fairly bike-friendly by U.S. standard.
Yup - and everything is 2 stories or less. Nothing gets built, not because of demand, but because zoning laws. There’s no reason other than the city of Palo Alto won’t allow tall buildings to be built - the less that is built the more wealth homeowners and real estate investors get.
I had a colleague who had to travel frequently between Stanford and Berkeley (slightly unusual); it’s a sub-hour drive, but easily takes ~3 hours or more via public transit.
P.S. At least the Valley is fairly bike-friendly by U.S. standard.