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Protesters block Google bus in S.F. Mission
- dannyr 13y agoFrom http://www.sfbg.com/googleshoutdown http://www.sfbg.com/googleshoutdown: UPDATE 12:32pm: Various tips have streamed in that this shout-out was staged. Protest organizer Leslie Dreyer talked to us on the phone and verified that this person's identity was Max Bell Alper, a union organizer from Oakland. This person was not a Google employee, and Dreyer was not able to verify if Alper was there in the morning with the group of 20-30 protesters. The Guardian is attempting to contact Alper for comment. Dreyer said she, as an organizer, was unaware that the "performance" had been planned. We are following this as it develops.
- stephencanon 13y agoThe article linked here doesn’t mention the “faux Googler” at all. Not sure why you’re posting this comment on this particular article.
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- adventured 13y agoIt elaborates on the nature of the protest that was occurring.
- stephencanon 13y agoIt elaborates on the actions of one individual, who may or may not have had anything to do with the rest of the protesters, and distracts from the actual complaints (valid or not) those protesters have.
- muglug 13y agoI applaud them for creating a mini-Twitter firestorm in the process. It's a shame the local media misidentified one of the actors (one of them playing an angry Googler)
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- chaz 13y agoDoes anyone know what the sign "Fine $271; Total Fine (2011-2013) $1 Billion" refers to? https://twitter.com/maxbatt/status/410097083081695233/photo/1/large https://twitter.com/maxbatt/status/410097083081695233/photo/...
- jamiequint 13y agoI assume the number of shuttle bus stops * fine for stopping in a bus zone ($271) ~= $1 Bn
- chaz 13y agoTheir math seems suspect. $1B / $271 = 3.7 million stops. Assuming 39 bus stops in the Bay Area [1], a 7d/wk schedule (i.e., no separate holiday/weekend schedule), and that every bus stop gets an equal number of stops, that's 86 stops per day per bus stop. Or once every 17 minutes, around the clock. I'd believe that frequency for peak hours at the busiest/largest stops, but not as the all-day average across every stop. [1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443982904578044520776395486 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044398290... Edit: From their website & flyer: http://www.heart-of-the-city.org/ http://www.heart-of-the-city.org/ Tech Industry private shuttles use over 200 SF MUNI stops approximately 7,100 times in total each day (M-F) without permission or contributing funds to support this public infrastructure. No vehicles other than MUNI are allowed to use these stops. If the tech industry was fined for each illegal use for the past 2 years, they would owe an estimated $1 billion to the city. The numbers still sound high to me, but ... shrug
- tedivm 13y ago>Google declined to comment on the map, but said it has over 100 buses that shuttle 4,500-plus people per day from more than 30 stops across seven Bay Area counties. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443982904578044520776395486 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044398290... So Google alone could make up that number. Toss in the other tech companies that are doing this as well and I can see how there are far more than 86 stops a day.
- ma2xd 13y agoIt's a fake. The guy is an activist and is named Max Bell Alper. http://www.makingchangemedia.org/about-the-team/ http://www.makingchangemedia.org/about-the-team/ http://www.gettyimages.no/detail/news-photo/occupy-wall-street-west-protestor-max-bell-alper-of-news-photo/137422522 http://www.gettyimages.no/detail/news-photo/occupy-wall-stre...
- waterlesscloud 13y agoWhich guy? The guy not mentioned at all in the article?
- seppo0010 13y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yc6z2oSPdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yc6z2oSPdQ
- stephencanon 13y agoAs my sibling poster pointed out, this article doesn’t mention “the guy” at all.
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- crbnw00ts 13y agoYes, that guy was fake, but the protestors blocking the bus and preventing it from leaving were real.
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- walshemj 13y agoAnd unfortunately is an example of the "hobby" activists that bedevil the (for want of a better word) the progressive movement in the USA. Instead of dealing with the hard issues they love to play act.
- EarthLaunch 13y ago> “Public $$$$, Private Gains,” That's true, and the right solution is to remove public funding from transportation. Then there's no downside to private gains.
- zwieback 13y agoprivate highways?
- theorique 13y agosure, why not?
- InvisibleCities 13y agoYou know, we actually tried that for a while (search for Turnpike System or Turnpike Trusts on wikipedia), and it was an unmitigated disaster. Because turnpike operators had what were effectively local monopolies, they collected absurdly high fees and often spent as little as possible on routine maintenance, resulting in high cost / low quality roads. This was a major impediment to free trade, as it drove shipping costs to prohibitively high levels. The socialization of roads that took place during the Victorian era, along with the growth of the railroad industry, helped usher in the period of great economic and industrial expansion that lead to the Gilded Age.
- erichurkman 13y agoIt was tried in New York City as well, with a mix of private and public rail/subway systems leading into the 30s and 40s [1]. It's an interesting read. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Su...
- baddox 13y agoThe Turnpike trusts were just government organizations that attempted to fund government roads with a per-use toll. They were a far cry from private road systems.
- zxcvvcxz 13y agoAnyone find it lame how people are tweeting about an incident instead of communicating with each other when they're like 10 feet away? Don't expect to reason with protesters if you're not even willing to talk to them. Way to be the uptight sheltered techies you're being made out to be. That being said, I don't think it's legal to block a vehicle, and protesters would probably be better served doing something productive rather than complaining immaturely in this matter. Shame on everyone!
- sp332 13y agoWho says they're not communicating with each other, as well as dozens of people on twitter? Edit: as to why they didn't talk to the protesters, it's because they were busy yelling and there's a bus in between them.
- negrit 13y agoI don't think they care about it being legal. All they want is media attention and people talking about it. It works.
- lotso 13y ago>That being said, I don't think it's legal to block a vehicle, and protesters would probably be better served doing something productive rather than complaining immaturely in this matter. Would you have said the same thing about the Greensboro sit-ins? Not trying to be snarky, curious as to where the line is drawn for being productive or being a nuisance in your opinion.
- mhurron 13y ago> I don't think it's legal to block a vehicle Civil Disobedience is pretty much by definition illegal.
- baddox 13y agoCivil disobedience just means deliberately breaking laws. For your argument to make any sense, you still have to demonstrate that blocking a vehicle is breaking the law.
- xster 13y agoI just moved to the area and have little context, wondering what solution are the local residents fighting for? I'd imagine going back to an idyllic agrarian past is probably not viable. Is the proposal for companies to pay a special municipal tax for zoning special loading curb areas (which I'd imagine UPS and taxis and the likes will have to pay as well for using public infrastructure)? Is it for higher income or newer residents to pay a special tax to give to lower income or older residents which can be used to fund affordable housing projects? What is the proposed solution that can be put into a legislation?
- arnoldwh 13y agoHopefully, people can work together to what I think could be 2-3 good outcomes that help alleviate some of these very real problems: 1. Public Transportation: both inter & intra-city transportation is very poor. It's extremely hard to travel between neighborhoods in San Francisco, and it's a huge reason people rely so much on Lyft and other providers in the city. Also, it's really difficult to travel between SF and Oakland (as well as other cities). Creating better / more infrastructure that connects these two should help ease supply constraints that cause these price spikes in the first place. Not sure how feasible this is...especially looking at other cities experience in public transportation (example: bay bridge). 2. More supply. One of the effects of previous legislation to keep the SF "neighborhood feel" was that it constrained new supply coming into the market. Unfortunately, it takes a few years for new units to come into the market, and it's obvious it's not keeping pace with demand. There of course needs to be a balance vs. keeping SF's historic appeal, but maybe the previous compromise leaned too heavily against putting up new units. 3. Government subsidies / rent control to help ease rapid price hikes. I'm not as big of a fan of these, but largely because I don't quite understand all the economic/social effects.
- xanderstrike 13y agoI don't get it. The buses are cutting down on personal driving (a universally acknowledged evil), and paying for permits to use the stops (generating revenue for the city). Would these people rather the Google employees all drive personal vehicles, increasing wear and tear on the roads, congestion, pollution, etc., costing the city money? Also, is it really the companies fault that the value of housing in the area is going up because they exist? Can you really expect them to get up and leave? I don't really see what the companies are getting out of this in the first place. They don't have to shuttle their employees in to work, could save a whole lot of money by not renting/buying buses, but they do and it does nothing but positive things for the employees, the city, and the environment.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago"it does nothing but positive things for the employees, the city, and the environment." When you say something like this you really have to realize that there may be some bias here. I think these protestors feel pretty negative about this, I can't imagine that it's for no reason.
- cia_plant 13y agoAssuming that everyone has a reasonable point, is also a bias. There are protests over gay marriage and "get the government out of medicare" and all kinds of ridiculous things.
- ryguytilidie 13y agoFirst, i never said reasonable point, you did. I don't think its disingenuous to assume that a large group of people protesting have even a single reason to be doing so. The person I'm responding to seems to believe they have NO REASON to be protesting. I'm simply saying that I don't think a bunch of people went and wasted their AM for no good reason.
- cia_plant 13y ago
- Patrick_Devine 13y agoI get the rationale of targeting Google's private bus fleet. There's nothing like a giant bus billboard rolling through your neighborhood to remind you of gentrification and the exorbitant rent prices. I do, however, find it pretty difficult to sympathize with the protesters. Would these people have preferred everyone on the bus to have driven their cars instead? I suppose you could argue that the buses themselves are enabling gentrification, because if they weren't there, more people might stay in the valley instead of living in the city. That's a pretty tenuous connection though because you could argue that it would have happened anyway (I did the commute over ten years ago between Potrero and Palo Alto). If Google wanted to alleviate some of the vitriol, they could offer to allow non-Googlers to use the bus (like Stanford's Marguerite system) either for free or some kind of nominal charge. I realize that's a headache, but instead of getting bad publicity, they turn it on its head and the "two tier" comments ring pretty hollow.
- judk 13y agoSFans don't want to ride the buses. The protestors complaint is that SF should be for people who work in SF.
- Patrick_Devine 13y agoAuslander raus!
- ChuckMcM 13y agoIt is entirely unclear what they are protesting, other than 'not working at Google.' The alleged trespass of using 'public infrastructure for private profit' is unsupported. People pick up and drop off people at the sidewalk (required, no stopping in the middle of the street). The staged appearance of a guy who is a union organizer (reported elsewhere) added a bit of melodrama. Looking at the action critically, what is to be gained by calling attention to Google, Facebook, and others providing their own bus fleets?
- dap 13y agoThe corporate buses often stop at public bus stops, sometimes blocking MUNI buses from the stop.
- rubiquity 13y agoAs the article states, gentrification and "income inequality" (lol?) were the main reasons for these protestors surrounding the Google bus. I'm sure Google bus is an inconvenience for other busses but that wasn't why these people were protesting.
- md224 13y agoJust curious, why the "lol" for income inequality?
- thomasz 13y ago"Your poverty makes us sick"
- rubiquity 13y agoI recognize it's a real thing I just can't stand the mindset that such a word creates. If income/money is an issue for you, go out and do something to change that, don't sit around and be toxic against people that aren't having income issues.
- seanconaty 13y agoThis op-ed does a better job at explaining how some non-tech residents of San Francisco feel about the buses. When your experience of a big city is a seamless parade of hip restaurants and privately funded transportation, it's easy to overlook the things that cities need, like filled potholes and a reliable transit system. San Franciscans feel resentful about the technology industry's lack of civic and community engagement, and the Google bus is our daily reminder. http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Why-we-re-invisible-to-Google-bus-riders-4467574.php http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Why-we-re-invisible-to-...
- seanconaty 13y agoI personally think it has to do with wealthier people doing what they want regardless of what the community wants. Similar outrage flared after the Sean Parker wedding. Regardless of what he actually did at the site, regardless that he paid a fine after the fact, regardless that it created jobs (I know a guy who worked for the lighting company) he pulled the ask-for-forgiveness-rather-than-permission stunt and did what he wanted to do, community & regulations be damned. He got what he wanted: a magical wedding in a beautiful, protected area of Big Sur.
- judk 13y agohttp://m.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/sean-parker-responds-to-redwoods-wedding-criticism-and-his-defense-is-actually-pretty-convincing/276553/ http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/sean-par... How dare he donate millions of dollars to conserve and restore Big Sur.
- leot 13y agoThe Bay Area tech sector is not to blame, here. It's those opposing densification: Paris is beautiful and has a density of 21,000/km^2. San Francisco can thus clearly remain beautiful and functional while increasing its density from its current paltry 6,600/km^2. Want an affordable San Francisco? Increase the number of housing units. - low-density - beautiful - affordable ... pick two.
- Cookingboy 13y ago
- mahyarm 13y agoThey should be protesting city hall and public unions for their anti-development behavior.
- stefan_kendall 13y agoAgreed. San Francisco has an artificial cap on supply as demand continues to rise. It doesn't take more than the first 40 seconds of an economics class to figure out what's going to happen to the price. You can either decrease demand or increase supply. And good luck kicking people out of San Francisco. (As a side note, if I worked for google I'd live as close as possible in Mountain View. But I'm not the nightlife type.)
- codex 13y agoXenophobia is a natural reaction to competition for scarce resources.
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