5 ms·
Google’s New Private Ferry Won’t Defuse Tension Over Buses
- Zhenya 13y agoWhy do people think this has anything to do with the bus protests? Can't Google be trying to find a more efficient way to get their employees to work ergo getting more labor out of their salaried employees? <code> We certainly don’t want to cause any inconvenience to SF residents, and we’re trying alternative ways to get Googlers to work,” </code>
- melling 13y agoHow about bringing the office closer to them. Put a Google office in Oakland near a Bart station? http://www.bart.gov/stations http://www.bart.gov/stations People won't complain if Oakland starts to gentrify, right? Maybe Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc can work out a deal with the city to get tax breaks. It's a win for everyone.
- tomkarlo 13y agoThe protests over gentrification that turned into brick-throwing were in Oakland. I can't imagine they'd prefer more people living there because of a short commute.
- melling 13y agoWell, is there anywhere on the map that is suitable? http://www.bart.gov/stations http://www.bart.gov/stations
- smtddr 13y agoLike I said[1] in another comment here, I think a big source of the problem is that BART doesn't reach enough spots. We need more spots on that map. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7028107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7028107
- melling 13y agoSure but that'll take a decade, if not two. It takes forever to build these types of systems in America, especially California.
- tomkarlo 13y agoNot for the protesters. The complaint is that tech workers are driving up rents and housing prices in SF, not that they're causing traffic. (As I understand it.) If there was an office anywhere on Bart, people would even more likely to live in SF and Oakland.
- theorique 13y agoPeople won't complain if Oakland starts to gentrify, right? I wouldn't hold my breath for that one. People generally complain when any place starts to gentrify.
- VladRussian2 13y agoafter protests against ferry, the next mode of transportation will be a private plane i guess, something like Osprey. Or may be submarine.
- misnome 13y agoPersonal quadrocopters, flying googlers to and from home?
- VladRussian2 13y agoyep, looking at the prototypes like e-Volo, one can try to imagine the Bay Area skies in 5 years.
- vacri 13y agoI think that a fleet of howdahs would prevent a lot of aggressive attacks on google transport. Wouldn't really quell the accusations of elitism, though...
- verandaguy 13y agoOr possibly a nuclear-powered drill. That is, until they find a way to lift employees into orbit, and have them perform orbital jumps down to Mountain View. Of course, all of these would be moot once Google supplies all employees with a private teleporter. I gather that's what the Glass team are working on now.
- outside1234 13y agodefuse? a new superyacht is just going to make this worse. i mean seriously, why can't they take caltrain?
- tomkarlo 13y ago"Improving Bay Area Economy Pushing Caltrain Ridership To Limit" http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/11/29/caltrain-may-be-reaching-ridership-capacity-as-bay-area-economy-improves/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/11/29/caltrain-may-be-... And that's at just ~54,000 daily riders. The big tech companies on the peninsula must have well over 100,000 employees.
- Zhenya 13y agoJeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!
- packetslave 13y agoSpoken like someone who has never tried getting from Caltrain in downtown Mountain View to north Bayshore where GOOG is. Even if Caltrain could handle the increased ridership (which it can't), downtown MTV streets can't support the increased shuttle density that would be required to make this work. Oh, and good luck getting the MTV city council to approve any kind of public transportation improvements into N. Bayshore.
- ebiester 13y agoIt's simple: Bulldoze Mountain View and de-suburbify it. That, or move the graves out of Colma and turn it into a second Hong Kong, because we don't have many options. People want to live in the temperate area of the bay. Younger people, in general, aren't interested in the suburbs anymore, and that leaves SF and Oakland.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- muzz 13y agoParts of Mountain View are actually being bulldozed and re-built with higher density. The shopping center at San Antonio / El Camino for example. There is plenty of infill redevelopment going on within a few miles of the Googleplex, but of course building housing takes longer than printing job offer letters.
- timr 13y ago"People want to live in the temperate area of the bay." The weather in the south bay is better than in SF.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoIt's not quite so simple. Young male tech workers move to the city because it has more girls. Trying to build a city where the tech industry is isn't going to work because people will know that it will be disproportionately males living there.
- pbiggar 13y agoProbably not Colma then. Its the foggiest place I have ever been.
- jfb 13y agoI think the ferry idea is interesting, because the Bay is totally underutilized. I used to live in the Mission and work in Oakland, and I'd just bike to the ferry terminal. Aside from being a relaxing way to spend your morning commute, you have an alternate to BART or driving. Why shouldn't Peninsula and South Bay communities have the same access to ferries?
- suyash 13y agoFerry idea is pretty inefficient actually since neither Googleplex is by the bay where the ferry can drop off nor do all googlers live near the Piers in the city. Taking bus from Redwood city to MV and then back from Ferry landing to home in SF is a big time waster. I think if the Bus deal works out with the city, that would make most sense.
- Patrick_Devine 13y agoThe Googleplex is by the bay, it's just that the bay is pretty silted in around Mountain View, and there's a nature park where the ferry would come in. Historically, there used to be a boat landing right next to where GOOG is which was built by the Rengstorff family. Here's a link: http://www.ci.mtnview.ca.us/services/learn_about_our_city/city_centennial.asp http://www.ci.mtnview.ca.us/services/learn_about_our_city/ci...
- batbomb 13y agoFerry to MV would be ~30 minutes or less from SF. The Vallejo fairy is nearly twice as long and it takes an hour. Then from Redwood City to MV it's about 20 minutes, depending on traffic. The 30 minutes is on par with what it would take by bus, and much better than what it would take if there's heavy traffic between SF and RWC. The location of the piers is pretty good. It's close to BART, SOMA, etc... It's really tricky to navigate the downtown traffic as well between 7 and 9 as well, so you'd save some efficiencies from that. It's probably roughly on par with a bus, maybe a bit longer than the ideal case but probably better than the average case.
- lutorm 13y agoThis talk of "Google taking from the city without giving anything back" seems bizarre to me. What is Google taking? People are free to live where ever they want, and it's not Google's fault. And how about all the economic activity that these people bring to the city?
- mc32 13y agoWhat you say is true but it does not matter to the people who disapprove, or protest. It's not about overall impact, it's about the impact on them specifically and they view it as negative on them. Does not matter that the city is enriched, overall, that restaurants prosper, that niche stores become sustainable, what matters is that these things don't benefit the detractors directly.
- mpyne 13y ago> Does not matter that the city is enriched, overall, that restaurants prosper, that niche stores become sustainable, what matters is that these things don't benefit the detractors directly. Or as Mark Twain put it, "It's not the progress I mind; it's the change I don't like."
- jeduan 13y agoThis refers to the Google buses using the bus stops which are usually reserved to the Muni buses only.
- fatjokes 13y agoI see your point but it has to be more than that. These protestors must see that it's better to share these stops than to have extra cars on the street, or more crowding on the already shitty public transit.
- lotso 13y agoThe sentiment is that they are taking away housing options from people who have lived in SF for years and not only contributing to the gentrification of the community, but not even giving back or participating in it as well.
- mmanfrin 13y agoI can generally empathize with most movements, even if I disagree -- one can take a look at the goal and see the reason, no matter how misguided. This is not one of those times. I sincerely don't get how Google/Tech are the targets of hate. I can understand people upset over them using muni stops, but breaking windows of busses in west Oakland, and getting mad at ferries? Can someone explain this to me? Why is the anger directed at tech?
- m0nastic 13y agoTech employees are the San Francisco equivalent of investment bankers.
- smtddr 13y agoWell, like the article says - Google Bus just became the physical target for their anger. What they're upset about is tech workers' wealth raising the cost of living in SF. Google is a big name even outside of tech, so Google's buses in SF are the "low hanging fruit" to vent anger towards. For the record, I do agree that tech salaries are very high and the fact that most of them like to live in SF displaces everyone before them. I don't know how to fix this problem or even exactly who's at fault, but I definitely see how difficult this would be if I was not in tech trying to live in SF and watching landlords raising rent all around me and my current landlord trying to find ways to get me to leave. I think this problem is worth talking about and a solution should be pursued. I can't help but think a lot of this could be eased by having better public-transportation in the bay-area for everyone, maybe tech companies should all get together and help fund & extend BART faster into areas that may help techies not feel like they have to live in SF. I live in the East Bay because BART is less than 20mins away from my house. So a quick drive, ride on the train while watching Anime on my kindle then suddenly I'm on market-street. Good enough for me. Outside of commute hours, SF is about 45mins away from me by car. Close enough for anything I'd want to do in SF without actually living there. BART stops at Palo Alto, Mountain View, Redwood/FosterCity, Danville, Milpitas, San Ramon and San Jose might help people spread out more instead of concentrating into SF. Is that hyperloop project still planned?
- mjmahone17 13y ago
- Cyclone_ 13y agoI think that the only way that these protestors will be happy is if people who work at Google or Facebook just curl up in a ball and die.
- hasker 13y agoMaybe they could just write a check to electrify the caltrain a few years faster: http://sonic.net/~mly/Caltrain-Electrification/electrification-qa.html http://sonic.net/~mly/Caltrain-Electrification/electrificati... . I never got why it has taken CA so long to make this happne.