In fairness, Apple originally proposed far fewer parking spaces, but was overruled. The article recognizes the role that Cupertino's zoning laws played in this:
Making the commute less car-dependent, for starters. But to do so would have necessitated a change in existing zoning requirements that forced Apple to provide about 11,000 spaces for 12,000 workers. Apple could have pushed harder to press for fewer spaces; Cupertino should re-examine policies that make driving the easiest option. It seems obvious to build a large corporate office near a transit stop, but very few Bay Area jobs (
only 21 percent) are within a half-mile of a regional rail station. If you take San Francisco out of the equation, that percentage drops to 5 percent.
Yes, perhaps Apple could have pushed harder. Considering the cost of those parking structures (I believe the original plan called for all parking to be under the ring), they had financial incentive to do so. I can only speculate that the time they might have spent fighting the good fight could have delayed the project for several years. Another possibility is that the city planners were being pragmatic; "Most of your workers are or will be living in neighborhoods where mass transit is impractical. Like it or not, you'll need more parking."
If you look at mass transit maps of the Lower Bay area, it seems very hard to locate more than 5% of the jobs near conventional mass transit - the housing density can't support many rail lines. This means fewer true mass transit choices, with lots of feeder service by bus, a bit of light rail, and someday, maybe lots of small, driverless electric jitneys. Back when I had family in San Jose (not all that far from Apple Park) I tried to walk to the local Taca, Taca, Taco Bell and supermarket... hike would be the better term. Not a lot of fun in August.
The best "sell" for mass transit is when it's truly more convenient and far less expensive than driving. In places like Silicon Valley, that's rarely the case. I've always thought you have to be crazy to drive to work in high-density cities like New York and San Francisco (I commuted into Manhattan for decades). Parking alone can cost hundreds per month. There's the time and stress of rush hour traffic (the bus may not move any faster, but at least you can relax and read), tolls (much worse in NY than San Fran), the cost of owning an extra vehicle... Yet tens of thousands of Manhattan-bound commuters drive anyway. Maybe it's that American "freedom" thing, or perhaps they don't like having to transfer from train or bus to bus or subway... It's second nature to me, but to a whole lot of suburbanites, it's a totally foreign concept. If mass transit can be a hard sell in areas where it's a relative no-brainer, how tough must it be somewhere like Silicon Valley?
Yes, Apple could have built the equivalent of Rockefeller Center somewhere in downtown San Francisco - something far more space and transit efficient (read: tall, with lots of elevators). It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to create the kind of relaxing, contemplative atmosphere (or accommodate the acres of solar cells and passive ventilation system) possible in the Apple Park design, but you can't have everything, right? It might have even over-stressed local transit lines and contributed to additional traffic congestion on the 101 and Junipero Serra, pushed apartment rental rates even higher (the locals aren't all that happy with what's already happened to Downtown). 11,000 workers has an impact on the neighborhood, regardless of where that neighborhood may be.
As a fan of mass transit (both during the decades when I was commuting to Manhattan and whenever I travel for work and pleasure), I was pleased to see that Apple Park does have a centrally located shuttle/bus station, closer to the Spaceship than the parking structures, with service to nearby mass transit facilities, but it's dwarfed by the parking structures - it looks like perhaps a dozen buses or shuttles can load at a time. Apple will continue to run private bus service to San Francisco, for those workers who prefer life in mass transit-friendly cities to auto-centric suburbs. However, we can't ignore the fact that The Valley epitomizes post-WWII urban sprawl, that Ozzie and Harriet/Leave it to Beaver/Miracle on 34th St. dream of a one-family home surrounded by a verdant lawn, a shrubbery, and one mature tree in the yard for a swing or treehouse. The nation is blanketed with this kind of "development," a by-product of having more wide open space than anyone believed we could desecrate.
It doesn't mean that people like the author of the NY Times article should stop fighting the good fight; we'd have even worse mass transit than we have. But in the end, all the employers in Silicon Valley wouldn't be able to force the kind of change necessary - people have to aspire to a completely different style of living - higher-density residential neighborhoods where walking is more convenient than driving, shared open space rather than private mini-estates where the reward for success is distance from the madding crowd. Good luck with that!
