Another possibility: A Google ferry terminal near Mountain View. Siegel points to recent tests of a Google-run ferry between San Francisco and Redwood City and Oakland.

“But that doesn’t do them much good, because Redwood City is too far from Mountain View,” he said. “A ferry coming into Moffett Field, where they have jobs just across the creek, could help them solve the problem of all the buses.”

It’s not so crazy. After all, this is a company that built its own multi-story barges on both coasts unbeknownst to anyone until an intrepid Cnet reporter did some digging. Siegel points out that the Navy used to float a barge to Moffett through the Guadalupe Sough on a regular schedule years ago, an effort that required substantial dredging every once in a while. (The theory was first raised last month by the Mountain View Voice.)

I think it's hard for most mortals to understand the scale of ambition that Google has.