7 ms·

The City from the Valley - private bus routes SF to South Bay

98 points by powera 14y ago

samstave 14y ago
This is fantastic. Previously livIng in Noe Valley, I'd see these all here time and often wondered about exactly this. Note to google if your reading this; tell you damn drivers to stay out of the left lanes on 101 when it is not a commuter lane - your drivers are HORRIBLE and I have seen them cause congestion and near accidents on many occasions.
ghshephard 14y ago
This would be the hidden cost of not having Bart-around-the-Bay. (A somewhat wonkish assessment of what Bard-Down-The-Peninsula would look like: http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-10-reasons-for-peninsula-bart.html http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-10-reasons-for-...)
- enf 14y ago
  BART around the bay wouldn't actually address the problems that the shuttles do, though. If BART had been built in San Mateo County, it would have followed the Caltrain right of way, which isn't anywhere near companies like Google and Apple. For companies that are actually centrally located in the peninsula cities, there is Caltrain.
- panda_person 14y ago
  Um, that was a sorta counterfactual post-I'm very familiar with that website, and I'm pretty sure it was merely a hypothetical, and that Clem and most people there prefer Caltrain. Which is faster. Roomier. Has restrooms. And you can eat or drink.
  - zem 14y ago
    and has one train an hour for much of its day.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  There is always Caltrain. Anyways, even if Bart went all the way to south bay, I'm sure these buses would still run as Bart would have too many stops, would be too slow and uncomfortable. If you have a lot of people coming from the same places and going to the same place, why not provide a dedicated bus that is virtually point to point? Seattle had (has?) express buses to Boeing that worked under the same principle. These were provided by the public transit agencies, however. Then Microsoft came out with the Connector, which is similar to the Google model.
badusername 14y ago
This is really well done. But it saddens me that out of thousands of companies in SV, there are only about 5 represented on that graph. And 101 is sitting still, clogged with one-passenger-cars for the entire peak period. What we need is some enterprising company, or even a municipal effort, to figure out how this can be handled as a venture. Every major SV company conglomeration (say Redwood Shores) will surely have hundreds - thousands of people commuting everyday, in a fairly set routine. Even at a premium price, I'm sure many of those people would opt in for a luxury bus service (reliable wifi would be key). Why aren't there any of those?
- markerdmann 14y ago
  I would easily pay $500 a month for a service like this.
  - tazzy531 14y ago
    Check out RidePal: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-bay-area-residents-commute-like-google-employees/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-b... _______________ For employers wishing to reserve a certain number of seats on specific buses at certain times, RidePal plans to sell subscriptions, starting at $250 a month for companies of up to 50 people. That subscription is credited toward fares, which start at $8 a seat for trips within a 10-mile zone and go up to $589 for a monthly pass within the largest travel zone, which extends up to 75 miles from the pickup location. _______________
- tazzy531 14y ago
  There's a couple of startups that do exactly this for individuals and startups. Here is one that I did a quick search on: http://www.ridepal.com/ http://www.ridepal.com/ Here's an article on these guys: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-bay-area-residents-commute-like-google-employees/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-b... Also, if there's a market, why doesn't someone on YC solve this problem? The GBus was started as a 20% project by a single engineer. He got a group of fellow coworkers together and charted a van to commute to work. When I was working in Finance in NYC, a bunch of the traders got together and chartered a van to drive them to the office in Stamford, CT. It's really not a hard problem to solve. Edit: Here's another: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=7520208 http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&i...
panda_person 14y ago
Part of the problem is that affluent tech workers want to have their cake and eat it too-everyone wants to live in cool, trendy neighborhoods in SF, and commute to their fancy jobs in the Valley. The problem is, its often a pain to get from those neighborhoods in a time efficient manner to a Caltrain station. Which...I"m not sure is a problem, since public transit in San Francisco (MUNI and BART) exists for more than just getting tech workers to a Caltrain station. There's also the radical suggestion of people actually living near where they work, or (horror of horrors) people living near public transit and taking that, rather than fancy private buses.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Tech workers making $200K+/year, if it takes them an hour to get to the caltrain station on MUNI, that's a lot of money just gone. And again, these guys are coming/going to the same place, why not just give them a bus that is almost point-to-point? That is fairly efficient/environmental if that is your bar. But I agree on the last point; but offices should be built where people want to live, not the other way around. Twitter is in SF for a reason. But then people don't all want to live in the same place; some have kids and prefer suburbs, some are younger and prefer the city. Edit: facebook -> twitter. (face plant)
  - enf 14y ago
    Twitter, you mean? Facebook is in the middle of nowhere by the Dumbarton Bridge.
  - mc32 14y ago
    Twitter remained in sf because the supes and mayor gave them (and workers) a huge tax break -provisionally for workers. Twitter got to stay; the city got to expand its revitalization of mid-market
  - rayiner 14y ago
    People don't want to all live in the same place, but you can accommodate them! Just have a high-density commercial business district and sensible long and short range transit. Here in Chicago, within half an hour or so on the El or the Metra, I can live in a downtown high-rise, a condo in a family-friendly in-town neighborhood, a single family home in a family-friendly in-town neighborhood, or a full blown grass and trees suburb, and still never get in a car as part of my commute. The problem in SF isn't that people want to live in different areas. The same is true in NYC or Chicago. The problem is that there isn't proper zoning. To make transit feasible, you need an extremely dense central business district with a ton of office space. You need employers to be mostly in the same core area. Then, you need to zone things and lay out transit stations so they're approachable for pedestrians. Too many systems make transit stations into these isolated intimidating affairs. This is a neighborhood in Chicago with a lot of young families: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paulina,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.943899,-87.67122&spn=0.00814,0.01826&sll=41.833733,-87.731964&sspn=0.546397,1.168671&oq=paulina+&hnear=Paulina&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.944093,-87.671231&panoid=TIDckfuoFW9xuPLua5EM2Q&cbp=12,16.71,,0,-11.84 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paulina,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en... Tree lined streets and small yards. Just a couple of minutes walk from the train stations. Just pan around and you can see the train tracks passing right through. Train stations in Chicago are extremely easily accessed from street level. No parking lots, no elaborate station house, just stairs and a platform: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sedgwick,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.91023,-87.639785&spn=0.008527,0.01826&sll=41.943623,-87.670907&sspn=0.008523,0.01826&oq=sed&hnear=Sedgwick&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.910121,-87.639786&panoid=KYijpA2G6ZoPtug1Jm-jjA&cbp=12,37.23,,0,1.69 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sedgwick,+Chicago,+IL&hl=e...
pronoiac 14y ago
Nuts. One of the reasons the stops are kept private, is to keep rents from going up near the stops.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  Too late, the locations of Apple, FB, and Google shuttle stops are probably the worst-kept secrets of SF.
- jrockway 14y ago
  The stops are far from secret. I think there was an article in the New York Times in 2007 about how they were increasing property values. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html
- randometc 14y ago
  There are other places that have published them already. e.g. see Appendix B in this report http://www.sfcta.org/images/stories/Planning/Shuttles/Final_SAR_08-09_2_Shuttles_062811.pdf http://www.sfcta.org/images/stories/Planning/Shuttles/Final_... from http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/584/1/ http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/584/1/
- majormajor 14y ago
  Even if the locations are secret, wouldn't the landlords of the locations near the stop notice the increased demand and raise their prices in response?
melling 14y ago
Buses? Anyone got a 21st century solution? It looks like its about 50 miles from SF to San Jose. Maybe someday they'll build a train that can turn that into a 15 minute commute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train Unfortunately, once you reach your destination, you'll spend another 20 minutes on a bus.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  20 or 30 minutes on the subway actually to get to Puxi (basically, downtown Shanghai). China's middle class is very cab oriented; it doesn't make much sense to take public transit, especially for 40 or so RMB the maglev costs, when you can hop into a cab and get where you want much sooner (barring horrible traffic). In Beijing, I taxi to work everyday despite living on the subway route to my office. Taking a taxi is not that expensive while its more comfortable and (not always) faster. This has no relationship to the American situation, I guess, which is tripled screwed by low densities, poorly developed public transit, and high taxi costs.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    > (barring horrible traffic) That seems a pretty big caveat... :] In Tokyo, it's often faster, and always more reliable, to take a train than a taxi unless you're going someplace way out in the boonies, because although the travel time is roughly equivalent in the best case, a taxi is frequently much slower due to traffic. Thank god for cellphones so one can at least known why one's taxi-using friend is 45min late...! [The same applies to buses too, of course.]
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      Tokyo subway is much better than Beijing's; here you will never get a seat no matter when you travel (not just rush hour), the transfers are wicked long, the system is also not very connected. It is very cheap though, only 2 RMB (~30 cents?), which explains why it is so crowded. With a taxi, I really have to make sure not to travel when traffic is bad, and it is much more expensive (50 RMB), but I can use my computer in the cab.
capkutay 14y ago
I see big companies run private bus lines from SF to South Bay. Has anyone considered starting a subscription based private bus line for employees of start-ups or smaller companies making the same commute? I'd imagine there'd be significant demand for that.
- Evbn 14y ago
  YC W13, RideWithUs.ly
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    The URL doesn't work. I know it's probably unrelated, but why do so many startups use a ccTLD of a country with such an unstable government? It just doesn't make business sense when there are so many good names out there.
    - cshesse 14y ago
      W13 means Winter 2013, so the URL won't work for awhile.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    That .ly is a bit out of place
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - capkutay 14y ago
    The URL doesn't work because this is just a concept pitch? I'm a developer in the city, if anybody would like to discuss implementing such a service, shoot me an e-mail. john@webaction.com
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    Maybe RideWith.me?
- gojomo 14y ago
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Oh this is just awesome. I remember looking at the shuttle map inside of Google and thinking "Wow this is like a real bus company or something." 40% of Caltrain's daily passengers. Makes you wonder what Caltrain could do with that money (I know, probably not invest it as efficiently as private companies do) But at what point does it become cost effective to build a people mover at this scale? And something joked about but never implemented inside Google was the idea that the busses in SF load up on a hovercraft ferry in SF and then jet down the bay to the 'plex. Figured they could come ashore near the Palo Alto Airport and disgorge busses that would take the Frontage road down to Charleston.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  A hovercraft could probably come ashore at Crittenden, it's practically in the marsh anyway.
- thrownaway2424 14y ago
  Chuck, if it's 40% of Caltrain's boardings just from SF to MTV alone, it must be about on par with Caltrain considering all origins.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Agreed, its a significant fraction. I recall the discussions about how 'slow' it was to use CalTrain from the city to the Googleplex, the shuttles are faster of course, and they have WiFi which the train doesn't (still) so I don't know if Google could pay for a 'bullet' between SF and Mtn view (the 332 train[1] is closest). But the piece I'm missing is how much traffic is into San Jose to/from the suburbs. Or is that traffic mostly serviced by the VTA lines. The 'smart trains' envisioned as the original people movers were a much better solution (dynamically adapting to traffic they would auto-exit at your chosen stop and ride on the through traffic center rail while expressing) but building that even on the existing right of way would be expensive. (oh and the hovercraft could come up at Crittendon but it would have to go over the sanctuary and that would cause some resistance to its arrival) [1] http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html
potatolicious 14y ago
A symptom of the sickness, IMO, and another example of the tech boom failing to hit anyone except techies. Our success and our wealth is failing to float all boats, or even any boats that aren't our own. Instead of tech worker demand driving infrastructure, it has simply created a separate (but equal?), exclusive, mirror transit system. Also an example of complete and utter urban planning failing on the part of the city of San Francisco. A large part of why companies don't set up shop in SF proper (despite the bulk of their work force wanting to live there), is due to the complete lack of development. Rents, both commercial and residential, are completely out of control and it actively drives away business. Meanwhile SF has completely crossed off new development in large swathes of the city - including pretty much the entire downtown commercial core. SF is a vibrant, innovative, creative population subsisting on the surface of a government that is firmly hanging onto antiquated notions of the 19th century, not even the 20th, and this conflict has reached epic proportions of ridiculousness. Everywhere you go find vibrant pockets of activity, but you can't shake the feeling that you're walking in a museum, instead of a evolving, changing, adapting city.
- mc32 14y ago
  Exactly right. SF is surprisingly conservative despite its social liberalism. It wants to remain a Victorian oasis in the 21st century. Development seems to have to meet extraordinary reqs compared to say SJ. SJ on the other hand is built out like a huge suburb with no downtown core.
- capkutay 14y ago
  "SF is a vibrant, innovative, creative population subsisting on the surface of a government that is firmly hanging onto antiquated notions of the 19th century, not even the 20th, and this conflict has reached epic proportions of ridiculousness." Extremely unfortunate but true. SF is one of the few cities that has the unique opportunity of creating a super-city, the technological world capital. How do they respond? By doing nothing. They could expand the reach of public transportation and develop on the outter rims of the city. They could AT LEAST make it easier to go downtown from less-expensive SF districts like the sunset and richmond. They would rather basque in their position as a second-rate metropolitan area, one step below the likes of NY and Boston.
languagehacker 14y ago
Those are some really cool maps. I still prefer the Soma tech scene, which is easily Caltrainable from points south, to the congested slogfest that is rush-hour 101.
cletus 14y ago
I've never lived in the Bay Area but I've visited a bunch of times. I've considered what I would need to do to live there without a car and it's difficult. Here are some glaring problems: 1. Caltrain is dog slow, infrequent and doesn't tend to go to places you want. Santa Clara County actually runs what seems to be a fairly decent VTA light rail that will get you from, say, downtown Mountain View to tech companies east of Moffett Airfield (Lockheed Martin, Yahoo, some of Microsoft's buildings, etc) but sadly not to the Google campus (west of Moffett Airfield). To take public transport from SF would require you going to South SF (say half an hour), 1h 20m to MTV and 15-20 minutes on a shuttle if one is running. It's 2 hours best case scenario or one hour (or slightly less) on the 101 on the shuttle busses. 2. Zoning is a disaster for commerce in the valley. Most land is reserved for ("zoned") single family residences on large blocks of land such that density is very low. Public transit just doesn't work at low population density; 3. New development is virtually nonexistent in SF. Rent control is, at this point, an unmitigated disaster to a city that's still clinging to some 60s idyll. Personally I think NYC is far more attractive than the Bay Area in all ways but two: the weather and the inertia of existing tech companies. You can live 5 minutes walk from work in NYC. There are very few places you could do that (or would want to) in SF.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I'd love to move to SF, but I don't think I can swing it. (2) and (3) are deal breakers for me. There is a sickening amount of wasted space in the Valley and in SF proper. I can deal with Manhattan rents for Manhattan (world class city, very limited land), but not when it's so terribly self-inflicated as it is in the Bay Area.
- ak217 14y ago
  > Zoning is a disaster for commerce in the valley... New development is virtually nonexistent What surprises me is that there is still no organization that adequately represents technology companies' and workers' interests on the peninsula and in the city. Most cities here seem to have public employees' associations that have a big say in how the city operates and develops. I think a PAC representing pro-density, pro-development, pro-infrastructure, pro-public transit interests that runs candidates for city councils and builds a track record of successful actions can become the prime political force on the peninsula. (At least if it manages to keep the public project costs from ballooning as they're prone to doing in CA.) Meanwhile, the public is subjected to mind-boggling pieces like http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/09/20/is-tech-destroying-san-francisco/ http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/09/20/is-tech-destroying-sa....
ak217 14y ago
What this illustrates to me is the utter failure of Caltrain. That right of way should have long ago been converted to a real public transit system. The fact that it hasn't illustrates the disengagement and feudal attitude of the cities along the peninsula. This and the outlandish anti-development bent in SF that potatolicious describes.

98 points by powera 14y ago

This is fantastic. Previously livIng in Noe Valley, I'd see these all here time and often wondered about exactly this. Note to google if your reading this; tell you damn drivers to stay out of the left lanes on 101 when it is not a commuter lane - your drivers are HORRIBLE and I have seen them cause congestion and near accidents on many occasions.

ghshephard 14y ago

This would be the hidden cost of not having Bart-around-the-Bay. (A somewhat wonkish assessment of what Bard-Down-The-Peninsula would look like: http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-10-reasons-for-peninsula-bart.html http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-10-reasons-for-...)

enf 14y ago
BART around the bay wouldn't actually address the problems that the shuttles do, though. If BART had been built in San Mateo County, it would have followed the Caltrain right of way, which isn't anywhere near companies like Google and Apple. For companies that are actually centrally located in the peninsula cities, there is Caltrain.
panda_person 14y ago
Um, that was a sorta counterfactual post-I'm very familiar with that website, and I'm pretty sure it was merely a hypothetical, and that Clem and most people there prefer Caltrain. Which is faster. Roomier. Has restrooms. And you can eat or drink.
- zem 14y ago
  and has one train an hour for much of its day.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
There is always Caltrain. Anyways, even if Bart went all the way to south bay, I'm sure these buses would still run as Bart would have too many stops, would be too slow and uncomfortable. If you have a lot of people coming from the same places and going to the same place, why not provide a dedicated bus that is virtually point to point? Seattle had (has?) express buses to Boeing that worked under the same principle. These were provided by the public transit agencies, however. Then Microsoft came out with the Connector, which is similar to the Google model.

badusername 14y ago

This is really well done. But it saddens me that out of thousands of companies in SV, there are only about 5 represented on that graph. And 101 is sitting still, clogged with one-passenger-cars for the entire peak period. What we need is some enterprising company, or even a municipal effort, to figure out how this can be handled as a venture. Every major SV company conglomeration (say Redwood Shores) will surely have hundreds - thousands of people commuting everyday, in a fairly set routine. Even at a premium price, I'm sure many of those people would opt in for a luxury bus service (reliable wifi would be key). Why aren't there any of those?

markerdmann 14y ago
I would easily pay $500 a month for a service like this.
- tazzy531 14y ago
  Check out RidePal: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-bay-area-residents-commute-like-google-employees/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-b... _______________ For employers wishing to reserve a certain number of seats on specific buses at certain times, RidePal plans to sell subscriptions, starting at $250 a month for companies of up to 50 people. That subscription is credited toward fares, which start at $8 a seat for trips within a 10-mile zone and go up to $589 for a monthly pass within the largest travel zone, which extends up to 75 miles from the pickup location. _______________
tazzy531 14y ago
There's a couple of startups that do exactly this for individuals and startups. Here is one that I did a quick search on: http://www.ridepal.com/ http://www.ridepal.com/ Here's an article on these guys: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-bay-area-residents-commute-like-google-employees/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/ridepal-to-help-b... Also, if there's a market, why doesn't someone on YC solve this problem? The GBus was started as a 20% project by a single engineer. He got a group of fellow coworkers together and charted a van to commute to work. When I was working in Finance in NYC, a bunch of the traders got together and chartered a van to drive them to the office in Stamford, CT. It's really not a hard problem to solve. Edit: Here's another: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=7520208 http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&i...

panda_person 14y ago

Part of the problem is that affluent tech workers want to have their cake and eat it too-everyone wants to live in cool, trendy neighborhoods in SF, and commute to their fancy jobs in the Valley. The problem is, its often a pain to get from those neighborhoods in a time efficient manner to a Caltrain station. Which...I"m not sure is a problem, since public transit in San Francisco (MUNI and BART) exists for more than just getting tech workers to a Caltrain station. There's also the radical suggestion of people actually living near where they work, or (horror of horrors) people living near public transit and taking that, rather than fancy private buses.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Tech workers making $200K+/year, if it takes them an hour to get to the caltrain station on MUNI, that's a lot of money just gone. And again, these guys are coming/going to the same place, why not just give them a bus that is almost point-to-point? That is fairly efficient/environmental if that is your bar. But I agree on the last point; but offices should be built where people want to live, not the other way around. Twitter is in SF for a reason. But then people don't all want to live in the same place; some have kids and prefer suburbs, some are younger and prefer the city. Edit: facebook -> twitter. (face plant)
- enf 14y ago
  Twitter, you mean? Facebook is in the middle of nowhere by the Dumbarton Bridge.
- mc32 14y ago
  Twitter remained in sf because the supes and mayor gave them (and workers) a huge tax break -provisionally for workers. Twitter got to stay; the city got to expand its revitalization of mid-market
- rayiner 14y ago
  People don't want to all live in the same place, but you can accommodate them! Just have a high-density commercial business district and sensible long and short range transit. Here in Chicago, within half an hour or so on the El or the Metra, I can live in a downtown high-rise, a condo in a family-friendly in-town neighborhood, a single family home in a family-friendly in-town neighborhood, or a full blown grass and trees suburb, and still never get in a car as part of my commute. The problem in SF isn't that people want to live in different areas. The same is true in NYC or Chicago. The problem is that there isn't proper zoning. To make transit feasible, you need an extremely dense central business district with a ton of office space. You need employers to be mostly in the same core area. Then, you need to zone things and lay out transit stations so they're approachable for pedestrians. Too many systems make transit stations into these isolated intimidating affairs. This is a neighborhood in Chicago with a lot of young families: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paulina,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.943899,-87.67122&spn=0.00814,0.01826&sll=41.833733,-87.731964&sspn=0.546397,1.168671&oq=paulina+&hnear=Paulina&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.944093,-87.671231&panoid=TIDckfuoFW9xuPLua5EM2Q&cbp=12,16.71,,0,-11.84 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paulina,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en... Tree lined streets and small yards. Just a couple of minutes walk from the train stations. Just pan around and you can see the train tracks passing right through. Train stations in Chicago are extremely easily accessed from street level. No parking lots, no elaborate station house, just stairs and a platform: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sedgwick,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.91023,-87.639785&spn=0.008527,0.01826&sll=41.943623,-87.670907&sspn=0.008523,0.01826&oq=sed&hnear=Sedgwick&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.910121,-87.639786&panoid=KYijpA2G6ZoPtug1Jm-jjA&cbp=12,37.23,,0,1.69 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sedgwick,+Chicago,+IL&hl=e...

pronoiac 14y ago

Nuts. One of the reasons the stops are kept private, is to keep rents from going up near the stops.

potatolicious 14y ago
Too late, the locations of Apple, FB, and Google shuttle stops are probably the worst-kept secrets of SF.
jrockway 14y ago
The stops are far from secret. I think there was an article in the New York Times in 2007 about how they were increasing property values. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html
randometc 14y ago
There are other places that have published them already. e.g. see Appendix B in this report http://www.sfcta.org/images/stories/Planning/Shuttles/Final_SAR_08-09_2_Shuttles_062811.pdf http://www.sfcta.org/images/stories/Planning/Shuttles/Final_... from http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/584/1/ http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/584/1/
majormajor 14y ago
Even if the locations are secret, wouldn't the landlords of the locations near the stop notice the increased demand and raise their prices in response?

melling 14y ago

Buses? Anyone got a 21st century solution? It looks like its about 50 miles from SF to San Jose. Maybe someday they'll build a train that can turn that into a 15 minute commute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train Unfortunately, once you reach your destination, you'll spend another 20 minutes on a bus.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
20 or 30 minutes on the subway actually to get to Puxi (basically, downtown Shanghai). China's middle class is very cab oriented; it doesn't make much sense to take public transit, especially for 40 or so RMB the maglev costs, when you can hop into a cab and get where you want much sooner (barring horrible traffic). In Beijing, I taxi to work everyday despite living on the subway route to my office. Taking a taxi is not that expensive while its more comfortable and (not always) faster. This has no relationship to the American situation, I guess, which is tripled screwed by low densities, poorly developed public transit, and high taxi costs.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > (barring horrible traffic) That seems a pretty big caveat... :] In Tokyo, it's often faster, and always more reliable, to take a train than a taxi unless you're going someplace way out in the boonies, because although the travel time is roughly equivalent in the best case, a taxi is frequently much slower due to traffic. Thank god for cellphones so one can at least known why one's taxi-using friend is 45min late...! [The same applies to buses too, of course.]
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    Tokyo subway is much better than Beijing's; here you will never get a seat no matter when you travel (not just rush hour), the transfers are wicked long, the system is also not very connected. It is very cheap though, only 2 RMB (~30 cents?), which explains why it is so crowded. With a taxi, I really have to make sure not to travel when traffic is bad, and it is much more expensive (50 RMB), but I can use my computer in the cab.

capkutay 14y ago

I see big companies run private bus lines from SF to South Bay. Has anyone considered starting a subscription based private bus line for employees of start-ups or smaller companies making the same commute? I'd imagine there'd be significant demand for that.

Evbn 14y ago
YC W13, RideWithUs.ly
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  The URL doesn't work. I know it's probably unrelated, but why do so many startups use a ccTLD of a country with such an unstable government? It just doesn't make business sense when there are so many good names out there.
  - cshesse 14y ago
    W13 means Winter 2013, so the URL won't work for awhile.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  That .ly is a bit out of place
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- capkutay 14y ago
  The URL doesn't work because this is just a concept pitch? I'm a developer in the city, if anybody would like to discuss implementing such a service, shoot me an e-mail. john@webaction.com
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  Maybe RideWith.me?
gojomo 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Oh this is just awesome. I remember looking at the shuttle map inside of Google and thinking "Wow this is like a real bus company or something." 40% of Caltrain's daily passengers. Makes you wonder what Caltrain could do with that money (I know, probably not invest it as efficiently as private companies do) But at what point does it become cost effective to build a people mover at this scale? And something joked about but never implemented inside Google was the idea that the busses in SF load up on a hovercraft ferry in SF and then jet down the bay to the 'plex. Figured they could come ashore near the Palo Alto Airport and disgorge busses that would take the Frontage road down to Charleston.

nostrademons 14y ago
A hovercraft could probably come ashore at Crittenden, it's practically in the marsh anyway.
thrownaway2424 14y ago
Chuck, if it's 40% of Caltrain's boardings just from SF to MTV alone, it must be about on par with Caltrain considering all origins.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Agreed, its a significant fraction. I recall the discussions about how 'slow' it was to use CalTrain from the city to the Googleplex, the shuttles are faster of course, and they have WiFi which the train doesn't (still) so I don't know if Google could pay for a 'bullet' between SF and Mtn view (the 332 train[1] is closest). But the piece I'm missing is how much traffic is into San Jose to/from the suburbs. Or is that traffic mostly serviced by the VTA lines. The 'smart trains' envisioned as the original people movers were a much better solution (dynamically adapting to traffic they would auto-exit at your chosen stop and ride on the through traffic center rail while expressing) but building that even on the existing right of way would be expensive. (oh and the hovercraft could come up at Crittendon but it would have to go over the sanctuary and that would cause some resistance to its arrival) [1] http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html

potatolicious 14y ago

A symptom of the sickness, IMO, and another example of the tech boom failing to hit anyone except techies. Our success and our wealth is failing to float all boats, or even any boats that aren't our own. Instead of tech worker demand driving infrastructure, it has simply created a separate (but equal?), exclusive, mirror transit system. Also an example of complete and utter urban planning failing on the part of the city of San Francisco. A large part of why companies don't set up shop in SF proper (despite the bulk of their work force wanting to live there), is due to the complete lack of development. Rents, both commercial and residential, are completely out of control and it actively drives away business. Meanwhile SF has completely crossed off new development in large swathes of the city - including pretty much the entire downtown commercial core. SF is a vibrant, innovative, creative population subsisting on the surface of a government that is firmly hanging onto antiquated notions of the 19th century, not even the 20th, and this conflict has reached epic proportions of ridiculousness. Everywhere you go find vibrant pockets of activity, but you can't shake the feeling that you're walking in a museum, instead of a evolving, changing, adapting city.

mc32 14y ago
Exactly right. SF is surprisingly conservative despite its social liberalism. It wants to remain a Victorian oasis in the 21st century. Development seems to have to meet extraordinary reqs compared to say SJ. SJ on the other hand is built out like a huge suburb with no downtown core.
capkutay 14y ago
"SF is a vibrant, innovative, creative population subsisting on the surface of a government that is firmly hanging onto antiquated notions of the 19th century, not even the 20th, and this conflict has reached epic proportions of ridiculousness." Extremely unfortunate but true. SF is one of the few cities that has the unique opportunity of creating a super-city, the technological world capital. How do they respond? By doing nothing. They could expand the reach of public transportation and develop on the outter rims of the city. They could AT LEAST make it easier to go downtown from less-expensive SF districts like the sunset and richmond. They would rather basque in their position as a second-rate metropolitan area, one step below the likes of NY and Boston.

languagehacker 14y ago

Those are some really cool maps. I still prefer the Soma tech scene, which is easily Caltrainable from points south, to the congested slogfest that is rush-hour 101.

cletus 14y ago

I've never lived in the Bay Area but I've visited a bunch of times. I've considered what I would need to do to live there without a car and it's difficult. Here are some glaring problems: 1. Caltrain is dog slow, infrequent and doesn't tend to go to places you want. Santa Clara County actually runs what seems to be a fairly decent VTA light rail that will get you from, say, downtown Mountain View to tech companies east of Moffett Airfield (Lockheed Martin, Yahoo, some of Microsoft's buildings, etc) but sadly not to the Google campus (west of Moffett Airfield). To take public transport from SF would require you going to South SF (say half an hour), 1h 20m to MTV and 15-20 minutes on a shuttle if one is running. It's 2 hours best case scenario or one hour (or slightly less) on the 101 on the shuttle busses. 2. Zoning is a disaster for commerce in the valley. Most land is reserved for ("zoned") single family residences on large blocks of land such that density is very low. Public transit just doesn't work at low population density; 3. New development is virtually nonexistent in SF. Rent control is, at this point, an unmitigated disaster to a city that's still clinging to some 60s idyll. Personally I think NYC is far more attractive than the Bay Area in all ways but two: the weather and the inertia of existing tech companies. You can live 5 minutes walk from work in NYC. There are very few places you could do that (or would want to) in SF.

rayiner 14y ago
I'd love to move to SF, but I don't think I can swing it. (2) and (3) are deal breakers for me. There is a sickening amount of wasted space in the Valley and in SF proper. I can deal with Manhattan rents for Manhattan (world class city, very limited land), but not when it's so terribly self-inflicated as it is in the Bay Area.
ak217 14y ago
> Zoning is a disaster for commerce in the valley... New development is virtually nonexistent What surprises me is that there is still no organization that adequately represents technology companies' and workers' interests on the peninsula and in the city. Most cities here seem to have public employees' associations that have a big say in how the city operates and develops. I think a PAC representing pro-density, pro-development, pro-infrastructure, pro-public transit interests that runs candidates for city councils and builds a track record of successful actions can become the prime political force on the peninsula. (At least if it manages to keep the public project costs from ballooning as they're prone to doing in CA.) Meanwhile, the public is subjected to mind-boggling pieces like http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/09/20/is-tech-destroying-san-francisco/ http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/09/20/is-tech-destroying-sa....

ak217 14y ago

What this illustrates to me is the utter failure of Caltrain. That right of way should have long ago been converted to a real public transit system. The fact that it hasn't illustrates the disengagement and feudal attitude of the cities along the peninsula. This and the outlandish anti-development bent in SF that potatolicious describes.