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Come on, the quarry is 16 miles away from Palo alto. Right now without traffic it's a 30 minute drive and 15-20 minutes just to get to 280. You're easily looking at an hour plus during rush hour before you put a bunch of housing on the mountain with one road leading in and out.
Yeah, it's closer than San Francisco, and it's also closer than Seattle and Toronto. I don't know why you are repeatedly exaggerating the geography to such an extent but it really undermines your point. The quarry is marginal land and would be a shitty commute for any points further than, like, Cupertino. Which is not nothing, but it's not a panacea.
You'd have better luck talking about the yuuge Grumman facility that is literally, certifiably, 100% in the middle of Sunnyvale right next to Caltrain than pretending that a quarry in the mountains or a field on the way to Gilroy are in the heart of silicon valley.
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