Commuting in Silicon Valley is a drag. The big tech companies that make their homes there know that, and devote significant resources to sweetening the trip to work for their employees, like the famous (or infamous) buses that shuttle workers from San Francisco down the peninsula’s crowded highways.

But as the tech giants plan massive campus expansions in the area, overburdened transportation infrastructure is going to become even more strained. When the digital behemoths seek approval for the architectural flights of fancy they want to build on limited available land (a hotly competitive process that goes on for years), the question of how to accommodate all those commuters is often one of the key sticking points.

So as part of Google’s proposal for its enormous, futuristic new headquarters in the North Bayshore section of Mountain View in Santa Clara County, the company has come up with a bicycle master plan to radically improve bicycle infrastructure in the area by emphasizing connections and creating low-stress cycling environments. The idea is to create a network of high-quality bike routes that would cross city lines throughout the northern part of Santa Clara County (North County, in the plan) and seamlessly allow bikes to negotiate current obstacles, such as freeway overpasses and busy arterials.

Google’s bike plan projects a future in which North County looks more like Copenhagen than typical suburban California.

Google’s bike plan is an ambitious vision, developed in partnership with Alta Planning and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. It projects a near future in which at least some of North County looks more like Copenhagen than typical suburban California, in that “almost anyone [could] ride a bike comfortably & safely—for any type of trip they might need to take.”

Already, nearly 9 percent of Google employees who live in North County commute by bike to the company’s existing headquarters (also in North Bayshore), and 21 percent of those who live within five miles ride to work. “We’ve gotten so far almost without trying,” says Jeral Poskey, program manager for transportation planning at Google. “It’s happened spontaneously.”