3 ms·

>The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing arou

by magduf 7y ago

>The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, What exactly are they supposed to do? Stage a violent revolt of the local government? They're a big company with a lot of money, but that doesn't give them control over the local politics, so there's only so much they can do about the transit situation. Public transit in America is notoriously horrible, and no single corporation could possibly fix it, so it makes perfect sense for them to hire some buses to help their employees commute faster. They're helping keep many, many cars off the road by putting people into buses, and yeah, it's unfortunate that non-Googlers can't use the buses, but if people want better public transit, then they should start voting for local politicians who will improve public transit. People don't want to do that just about anywhere in America, so this is what we get.

WorldMaker 7y ago
As one easy counter example, Microsoft spends a lot of money directly into King County transit options (and has done so regularly for a long term relationship), and "money talks" to politicians. It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. (That has its own issues in the entangling of corporate and political interests, of course, as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved.)
- magduf 7y ago
  >It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. They don't have to "fight" to pay for it, they just need to use tax money to do so. The problem is that voters don't want that. Voters are perfectly happy to massively subsidize infrastructure for cars (those roads aren't free), but they don't want to subsidize public transit, and claim that public transit should somehow survive on its own (even though roads don't). >as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved. There's nothing "capitalistic" or "free market" when it comes to the road system in this country. It's purely socialism. Charge use-based tolls for every road driven on and things will change quickly.

by magduf 7y ago

WorldMaker 7y ago

As one easy counter example, Microsoft spends a lot of money directly into King County transit options (and has done so regularly for a long term relationship), and "money talks" to politicians. It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. (That has its own issues in the entangling of corporate and political interests, of course, as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved.)

magduf 7y ago
>It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. They don't have to "fight" to pay for it, they just need to use tax money to do so. The problem is that voters don't want that. Voters are perfectly happy to massively subsidize infrastructure for cars (those roads aren't free), but they don't want to subsidize public transit, and claim that public transit should somehow survive on its own (even though roads don't). >as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved. There's nothing "capitalistic" or "free market" when it comes to the road system in this country. It's purely socialism. Charge use-based tolls for every road driven on and things will change quickly.