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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

This building seems super wasteful landwise, but I guess it's in the sprawling silicon valley suburbs so no one really expects or cares about compactness or efficiency.

It'll likely be arduous for someone to move from one part of the building to the other, but I suppose Apple employees don't typically need to do this that much.

How long is the walk across the inner square by foot I wonder?

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It is HUGELY wasteful. The statement "one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world" is a prime example of obscuring the truth, as well. When considering full-system efficiency this is undoubtedly one of the most wasteful structures in the world. 12000 employees, 14000 parking spaces, and a 1-hour walk to the nearest point of mass tranportation (Lawrence Caltrain, which is poorly served; the more frequently served Sunnyvale Caltrain is a 75-minute walk from this building).

There are VTA buses. They come every 30 minutes, and it would take you about 30 minutes to get to the Sunnyvale Caltrain station.

As far as I can tell from the schedule the minimum bus trip from this site to Sunnyvale Caltrain is 44 minutes, plus an average 10 minutes for headway. That assumes you did not start off on the east face of the UFO, in which case you should add a walk of up to a mile to get to the VTA stop on Wolfe.

Walking would be just about as fast.

Do you really think Apple is going to make their employees walk to the train station? They will obviously have shuttles running

That doesn't seem obviously true to me. Google for example doesn't run shuttles to Mountain View Caltrain.

Apple operates door-to-door shuttles to SF and other population centers but that isn't really the point. The point is they have obviously provisioned enough parking to give each and every one of their employees a parking space, with some left over. It's just irresponsible given the traffic situation in the area, and to call it energy efficient is greenwashing.

I'm not familiar with the area. Is real estate in short supply?

Among the most expensive suburban places on earth.

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