Dear City Council:
Could Menlo Park join up with the new Palo Alto Link ride sharing service? It would align with our climate activism, and that it would be interesting to monitor Palo Altos 18-month trial and open some informal communication. See https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/03/08/now-roaming-palo-alto-streets-on-demand-teslas
I wandered over the creek border and into Palo Alto and tried it. It seemed promising, though not clear to me why they have a grid of pickup stops, instead of just driving to exact pickup and dropoff locations. I expect if they look at their data, theyll find that its quite rare for two riders to need to be aggregated at the same time and place, and that it would be much more convenient to not have to walk several blocks on both ends of your journey.
Certainly, there would be some synergy to both cities to have Palo Alto Link cover a wider area. As a start, perhaps Palo Alto can share with us the ridership data they generate, to inform our analysis.
Steve Follmer
Willow Rd.
