[apkom]

From other board thread

Okay folks! Why don't we make Santana Row THE permanent place to meet? Based on the 2 threads regarding the "Crystal Cove" meet, it seems like more people are in favor of Santana Row (easy access, food, shopping, parking, etc.).

I live in the city and WILL drive an hour to go to Santana Row.

If we don't set a permanent place then this will NEVER happen. I was thinking of a second venue closer to the Northbay/SF area, but now we have other people thinking of the Eastbay too!!! So I say Fk the whole thing and stick to one venue.

We all know having 3 venues will not produce our objective of a "Crystal Cove" like meet.

So why don't we all just suck it up and drive down to Santana Row?

Another point:

I went and did a travel time comparison using Yahoo!Maps for different starting points around the Bay. Granted Yahoo!Maps isn't the best estimator, but the relative numbers should be OK given the same starting points. The results surprised me and strongly favor Santana Row as better than Stanford Mall.

(minutes) Santana Row Stanford Mall
San Rafael 59 59
San Francisco 42 34
Burlingame 29 21
San Ramon 35 46
Pleasanton 28 41
Oakland 39 45
Fremont 18 26
Monterey 74 89
Santa Cruz 37 52
Morgan Hill 28 48

For folks in the South Bay, SR is clearly better. For folks in the East Bay, SR is also consistently better. For folks in the North Bay and North Peninsula, SR is only slightly worse (8 minutes) than Stanford Mall. I think this is the lengthy town driving penalty coming into play that was pointed out as an issue with Stanford Mall.