1. Child care has always been expensive since the stone age. This is one of the reason human aging has been different than others and we don't "suddenly age and then die" after we stopped being fertile. We grow old and becomes grandparents watching grandchildren instead.
2. Even the cheapest undocumented child care labor would cost a lot of money (1k if shared, likely 2k in a certified facility, or 2k if live at your home hiding in the basement). For most non high income dual income household they are always the most expensive thing other than mortgage.
3. The Google childcare situation is a fluke, most other companies either rely on employees driving themselves or are near public transit, or they have no on site childcare. Google haven't open up their bus network (probably not enough on site employees to justify) and they open up childcare first, which is backward IMO. They should work with their transportation contractors to open up with some routes first, or something like that.
Most likely Google outsourced both childcare (likely Bright Horizon) and bus (maybe Royal Coach) to other companies and they were not in sync dealing with each other. Asking 1k a month on transit subsidies seems excessive IMO, I think the should be able to find a better way (like paying them money for rideshare with other Google employees and contractors, and flexible schedules) without into a mess.