7 ms·

Thank God for private tech buses. Imagine how many more cars would flood the already congested bay area highways if they didn't exist. I don't understand the ar

Thank God for private tech buses. Imagine how many more cars would flood the already congested bay area highways if they didn't exist. I don't understand the argument against the tech busses, seems pretty irrational to me.

twrkit 13y ago
A double decker bus at capacity holds ~80 people. Imagine if the FB/Apple/Yahoo/Google transportation infrastructure didn't exist at all... [0] [0] http://i.imgur.com/axZLrMT.gif http://i.imgur.com/axZLrMT.gif
mattlong 13y ago
Amen. FWIW, the tech buses allow me to not own a car at all.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Maybe. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) employees would be forced to live closer to the Peninsula. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) would be forced to invest in the public transportation infrastructure with all the taxes they're not paying. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho... I don't have the silver bullet answer, but if you live anywhere near San Francisco and are not on the road to tech millions, you can see that we have a big livability problem. Every day SF looks more like Santana Row, or the Plaza in Kansas City, plus homeless people.
- chrisrogers 13y ago
  or open field offices in the city proper.
- rsync 13y ago
  I have a silver bullet answer: Don't build terrible, dehumanizing, sprawl-encouraging, traffic-encouraging headquarters out in suburbia. This isn't my idea - it's what every progressive minded thinker that spends even two minutes thinking about urban/traffic/sprawl ideas arrives at. If google, facebook, et. al, were in the city, the network and wealth effects would be staggering. How many boats would be lifted by that rising tide ?
  - textminer 13y ago
    If Facebook/Google were in SF, I reckon many of its workers would still live in San Jose, Fremont and Oakland, due to affordability concerns and a lack of density in the city proper.
  - batbomb 13y ago
    You are assuming that they could move into SF. I'm sure Google could easily fill the Transamerica pyramid. SF isn't amenable to new construction, and Google and most these companies could easily be more decentralized then they are now in MV if they had to take up residence in the city.
  - milesskorpen 13y ago
    It isn't that simple — SF actively rejects attempts to increase density.
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    So if Google's entire MTV campus was in SF, you really think housing prices would be better? Move Apple, Facebook, Google to SF and you have gentrification on steroids.
- tertius 13y ago
  That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. Every single entity (including Warren Buffet) will pay the minimum amount of taxes required, i.e. your standard (no higher, no lower) tax burden.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. I'm an entrepreneur. I get that. And you can keep repeating it until we turn into India or Brazil or Nigeria or someplace else where the rich ride around in bulletproof cars while the poor beg by the dozen at each intersection. Or you can work toward a better solution.
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      Speaking as coming from an Eastern Europe, here's my view: the biggest problem in poor countries is corruption (in government), not poverty. My country, as well as those you mention, have plenty of middle class people, it's not just super-poor or super-rich. At least in my country, the biggest problem is that it's much harder to be a successful entrepreneur. Taxing corporations more does not, in any way, fix government corruption. In fact, it actually makes the problem worse, since there's more to steal by corrupt politicians.
- tolmasky 13y ago
  1. Tech buses were a response to people living in the city. I don't think not having them would necessarily "force" them to live on the peninsula. When I worked for a company in Sunnyvale that didn't have a private bus I still didn't move down there. 2. People act like this is a simple matter of getting more money into public transit. This is silly, even if that was the only roadblock (pun intended!), building a new freeway takes a lot of time, and expanding public transportation takes a lot of time, and in the meanwhile makes things even more miserable for everyone. Just look at all the very modest light rail expansions in the city and how they've made those sections nightmares for traffic for years. Google and FB need solutions today, not 5 years from now, and personally paying for shuttling their own employees seems like an incredibly environmentally conscious and fair way to handle it: don't forget, they're decreasing congestion on muni/bart/caltrain for everyone else. Lastly, money isn't the only problem: there's a lot of politics in public transport. For example, the reason the BART doesn't go all the way to Cupertino is because they voted against it there. So when you throw around expanding public transport as if its a defense of poor existing SF residents, realize that it may also be a form of antagonization for people in other communities. Hiring your own bus seems to be the simplest, cheapest, least displacing, and fairest way of solving this problem.
wavefunction 13y ago
What about the criticism that the private buses are using public infrastructure and are blocking the public busses from using the stop? Certainly you can agree that the public infrastructure should first go to the public systems we all fund and benefit from?
- saosebastiao 13y ago
  That sounds like an allegation worth verifying, but in any regard, a 2 minute delay could be caused by a the relative lead composition of the driver's foot just as much as it could be caused by a bus blocking a stop.
- jhvh1134 13y ago
  From my understanding, Google is currently working with the city to provide an alternative solution. Not that I think that would dampen the current biligerence of some of their critics.
sp332 13y ago
The tech bus protests aren't anti-bus, they're anti-discrimination. The rich people get to use the bus and the poor(er) people aren't allowed to. Other organizations and companies aren't even allowed to use their own buses - the city fines anyone else who uses the bus stops.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  They don't let random rich people on the buses, they only let company employees on. This makes sense, as each company pays for its own buses. The complaint that those buses stop in bus stops illegally is IMHO valid and they should fix it (i.e., stop somewhere where they're allowed to).

twrkit 13y ago

A double decker bus at capacity holds ~80 people. Imagine if the FB/Apple/Yahoo/Google transportation infrastructure didn't exist at all... [0] [0] http://i.imgur.com/axZLrMT.gif http://i.imgur.com/axZLrMT.gif

mattlong 13y ago

Amen. FWIW, the tech buses allow me to not own a car at all.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Maybe. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) employees would be forced to live closer to the Peninsula. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) would be forced to invest in the public transportation infrastructure with all the taxes they're not paying. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho... I don't have the silver bullet answer, but if you live anywhere near San Francisco and are not on the road to tech millions, you can see that we have a big livability problem. Every day SF looks more like Santana Row, or the Plaza in Kansas City, plus homeless people.

chrisrogers 13y ago
or open field offices in the city proper.
rsync 13y ago
I have a silver bullet answer: Don't build terrible, dehumanizing, sprawl-encouraging, traffic-encouraging headquarters out in suburbia. This isn't my idea - it's what every progressive minded thinker that spends even two minutes thinking about urban/traffic/sprawl ideas arrives at. If google, facebook, et. al, were in the city, the network and wealth effects would be staggering. How many boats would be lifted by that rising tide ?
- textminer 13y ago
  If Facebook/Google were in SF, I reckon many of its workers would still live in San Jose, Fremont and Oakland, due to affordability concerns and a lack of density in the city proper.
- batbomb 13y ago
  You are assuming that they could move into SF. I'm sure Google could easily fill the Transamerica pyramid. SF isn't amenable to new construction, and Google and most these companies could easily be more decentralized then they are now in MV if they had to take up residence in the city.
- milesskorpen 13y ago
  It isn't that simple — SF actively rejects attempts to increase density.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  So if Google's entire MTV campus was in SF, you really think housing prices would be better? Move Apple, Facebook, Google to SF and you have gentrification on steroids.
tertius 13y ago
That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. Every single entity (including Warren Buffet) will pay the minimum amount of taxes required, i.e. your standard (no higher, no lower) tax burden.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. I'm an entrepreneur. I get that. And you can keep repeating it until we turn into India or Brazil or Nigeria or someplace else where the rich ride around in bulletproof cars while the poor beg by the dozen at each intersection. Or you can work toward a better solution.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    Speaking as coming from an Eastern Europe, here's my view: the biggest problem in poor countries is corruption (in government), not poverty. My country, as well as those you mention, have plenty of middle class people, it's not just super-poor or super-rich. At least in my country, the biggest problem is that it's much harder to be a successful entrepreneur. Taxing corporations more does not, in any way, fix government corruption. In fact, it actually makes the problem worse, since there's more to steal by corrupt politicians.
tolmasky 13y ago
1. Tech buses were a response to people living in the city. I don't think not having them would necessarily "force" them to live on the peninsula. When I worked for a company in Sunnyvale that didn't have a private bus I still didn't move down there. 2. People act like this is a simple matter of getting more money into public transit. This is silly, even if that was the only roadblock (pun intended!), building a new freeway takes a lot of time, and expanding public transportation takes a lot of time, and in the meanwhile makes things even more miserable for everyone. Just look at all the very modest light rail expansions in the city and how they've made those sections nightmares for traffic for years. Google and FB need solutions today, not 5 years from now, and personally paying for shuttling their own employees seems like an incredibly environmentally conscious and fair way to handle it: don't forget, they're decreasing congestion on muni/bart/caltrain for everyone else. Lastly, money isn't the only problem: there's a lot of politics in public transport. For example, the reason the BART doesn't go all the way to Cupertino is because they voted against it there. So when you throw around expanding public transport as if its a defense of poor existing SF residents, realize that it may also be a form of antagonization for people in other communities. Hiring your own bus seems to be the simplest, cheapest, least displacing, and fairest way of solving this problem.

wavefunction 13y ago

What about the criticism that the private buses are using public infrastructure and are blocking the public busses from using the stop? Certainly you can agree that the public infrastructure should first go to the public systems we all fund and benefit from?

saosebastiao 13y ago
That sounds like an allegation worth verifying, but in any regard, a 2 minute delay could be caused by a the relative lead composition of the driver's foot just as much as it could be caused by a bus blocking a stop.
jhvh1134 13y ago
From my understanding, Google is currently working with the city to provide an alternative solution. Not that I think that would dampen the current biligerence of some of their critics.

sp332 13y ago

The tech bus protests aren't anti-bus, they're anti-discrimination. The rich people get to use the bus and the poor(er) people aren't allowed to. Other organizations and companies aren't even allowed to use their own buses - the city fines anyone else who uses the bus stops.

ahomescu1 13y ago
They don't let random rich people on the buses, they only let company employees on. This makes sense, as each company pays for its own buses. The complaint that those buses stop in bus stops illegally is IMHO valid and they should fix it (i.e., stop somewhere where they're allowed to).