
Why People Hate the Google Bus - antr
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bus-is-a-sign-of-silicon-valleys-excesses-2013-5
======
cletus
Wow this is badly written. It's almost a stream-of-consciousness serious of
unrelated anecdotes.

The article only touches the main point that has caused any real opposition to
the private buses: real estate prices in San Francisco.

SF is almost a schizophrenic city. It's a mix of the cultural revolution of
the 60s (and the offshoots from that), hipsters and "tech elite" (to use the
article's populist label).

A significant portion of SF (and, let's face it, the Valley) wants things to
stay the way they've always been. This means no high-density building, they
want rent control (a disaster from an overall housing point of view), a desire
for the city to remain relatively affordable (that ship has sailed), etc.

Some want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the money the tech
sector brings in but they still want nothing to change.

Economics is a bit like water. It'll find the leaks. Terrible public transport
to and in SF? Well, that's almost be design to keep people out. The solution?
Private bus companies of course.

I couldn't work in the Valley personally. The Valley is expensive suburbia
that makes one car-dependent. Living in SF and spending 2-3 hours a day on the
bus? No way in hell. I'd go insane.

The Valley's position of tech-dominance is largely historical. This is far
from guaranteed. The biggest threat is the difficulty on businesses to grow in
size (in or out of SF) and the increasing lack of affordable housing, well,
anywhere.

Compare this to NYC where I live in the city and have a 5 minute walk to work.
Sure this isn't cheap but if you worked in NYC you could, say, live in
Queens/Brooklyn. If you want a house, you can live in NJ, Westchester or Long
Island and get to the city in <45 minutes for cheaper than you can buy a house
in, Santa Clara or Mountain View. And you'll get good public transport to
boot.

Plus if you live in NYC you don't need a car (many still maintain cars from
what I see in SF).

IMHO NYC has done a lot of things right. You pay NYC income tax but you get a
lot for your money. The MTA which runs 24x7. Cheap cabs. A responsive police
force. And total NYC taxes are probably lower than CA taxes now too.

~~~
artagnon
That's an insightful writeup on the life in SF, but I didn't understand what
private buses have to do with real estate prices. Isn't it just bad public
policy?

My city (and many others) allow private inter-state buses to pick up
passengers from certain designated locations late in the evening (so it
doesn't cause a traffic jam). When implemented correctly, this is /fair/
because the service is accessible and (more-or-less) useful to everyone.
That's taxpayer money (roads, public congestion) being put to good use.

There are also lots of private company buses that pick up passengers from
their homes and drop them at their place of work (which is probably a factory
very far away), that don't even require explicit permission. If they weren't
early morning/ late evening buses, and caused a lot of congestion, the public
would certainly complain. The company would have to make amends to make
everyone feel more comfortable.

From what I've read, the Google Bus is the worst kind of private bus. It's
masked as a public bus, and uses the regular bus stops. Yet, it's designed in
a very unfriendly manner and does not indicate where it's going. In other
words, it's not easily accessible to everyone. And people naturally complain
because of the rift it creates in society.

There are even building rules in every city: one city is so particular that
its buildings must look friendly that everything is pink! (look up Jaipur).
Good public policy is about using taxpayer money to make public
spaces/services as friendly and equitable as possible.

That said, I don't deny that there might be terrible public transport in SF.
In which case, the solution is not to throw private buses out the window (I've
already stated that they're not fundamentally unworkable), but rather to pick
the points of criticism and make amends.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"but I didn't understand what private buses have to do with real estate
> prices."_

It's pretty simple. These companies are located _very_ far outside of the
city, but a substantial portion of their employee base prefer urban
lifestyles. So companies run these bus lines into the city in order to attract
said employees.

The normal housing demand in San Francisco is proportionate to the number of
_jobs_ in San Francisco. Now the housing demand is all the jobs in San
Francisco _and_ all the jobs in the Valley - and that's a lot of extra jobs.
By running these bus lines Google, Facebook, et al have successfully unloaded
a _lot_ of the housing demand from their local areas into the city, raising
prices sharply.

~~~
marssaxman
Can't blame them. Who would want to live in Mountain View? There's nothing
there.

------
Xcelerate
The uproar over this is somewhat ridiculous, in my opinion. As pointed out by
one of the engineers in the article, pooling people together for a ride is
much better for traffic and the environment.

Secondly, the complaint about the buses being available only for people who
work at the tech companies seems unfounded. At my university, they have campus
buses for the students to get around; people in the city are not allowed to
ride them. I don't see anyone complaining about those. There's something
called "company perks" and these buses just happen to be one of them. Yeah,
maybe there's a farmer somewhere who is working a lot harder for a lot less
pay than an engineer at Google. But if salary should correspond to effort,
then the _entire_ job system is screwed up and it doesn't make sense to just
single out these Google buses as one example.

~~~
nhaehnle
You are describing different parts of the elephant. The fact that these buses
create a feeling of segregation is indisputable. Those companies do have a
choice between providing their own private buses or working within the
respective communities to create a better _overall_ public transit system.

It seems to me like this should be in the interest of the employees as well.
After all, what if I want to take a bus somewhere else on the weekend, or want
to go somewhere with friends?

Maybe these aspects (community integration, public transit in general) are not
part of your personal objective function, but that does not make the uproar
_ridiculous_. It just explains why you personally do not care about it.

~~~
artagnon
It's a large (mostly private) vehicle masked as public transport that stops at
regular public bus stops. There's a reason public buses clearly state where
they're going: it's so that _everyone_ has easy access to them. Personal
freedom is not the issue at hand here: many of the employees can probably
afford BMWs. It's about bad public policy that creates a rift in society.

Google isn't paying for the roads or the right to use the public bus stops.
It's taxpayer money; not every taxpayer (an aging lady, for instance) might
want their money to go towards making a Google Bus possible.

~~~
greenyoda
" _Google isn't paying for the roads or the right to use the public bus stops.
It's taxpayer money..._ "

Google and its employees are taxpayers. Google pays corporate income tax to
California. The fuel Google buys to run the buses is taxed by California; fuel
taxes typically go (or at least are intended to go) towards funding roads.
Google employees pay state income tax, sales tax and SF real estate taxes.

And are you sure private companies don't pay to use the public bus stops?
These stops are presumably owned by SF, so if they wanted to charge Google to
use them they could easily do so.

------
bravura
"The city knows better than anyone that technology companies like having
things their way, whether it be taxes, transport or lifestyle."

Since moving to San Francisco from NYC, I have realized that almost everyone
in SF likes having things their way. It's not just the tech companies, it's a
pervasive attitude.

This is why people will wait in line for an hour to get "the best" ice cream.

This is why people complain when it is slightly too chilly to have a
completely pleasant bike-ride every single day of the year.

This is why people will wear t-shirts and shorts to business meetings.

This is why people get upset that their neighborhoods are being gentrified,
and fight to keep low capacity charming housing.

By comparison, in NYC, I was accustomed to there being a higher level of
acceptable shittiness, randomness, and contingency for everyday things.

Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy the fierceness to which SFers are
dedicated to setting up their lives exactly according to preferences.

The negative side arises when people stop getting their way. There have been
handful of times that I have seen this happen, and the veneer of California
laid-backness peeled away, and people get pissy about things that I would
consider an overreaction.

I'm not saying that this is true of everyone in SF. I'm just saying that I've
observed this phenomenon more frequently since I moved here.

------
LAMike
What are they so mad about? Instead of 100's of luxury cars clogging up the
road, it's one low key bus taking people to work.

And the office perks? Why do they care? It's not hurting anyone and it seems
to save money and boost productivity, while engaging the local small
businesses.

People can complain about anything these days...

~~~
ams6110
It's another variation on the age-old political strategy of envy to build
support/cohesion among followers. "See what those people have that you don't
have. It's UNFAIR!!" It's _exactly_ the same logic that people who complain
about the "one percent" and "greedy corporations" are using.

~~~
dkuntz2
I've never understood the whole idea of everyone must be equal because.
Politically speaking, the US (and most other countries) isn't
socialism/communism (and most people become hysterical at the first mention of
either), but capitalist system.

The system we're in today doesn't mandate that everyone is the same, and it
doesn't mandate that everyone has a right to the same. I'm not commenting on
whether the system is a good one or not, just that our current system doesn't
support, or even want to support the idea that everyone must be equal in all
measures.

What gets me even more is the people who complain that things aren't equal,
and that they should be, but who decry the idea of socialism and communism.

~~~
njs12345
I think this book did a pretty good job for me of justifying equality from a
philosophical perspective: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-
Do/dp/0141...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-
Do/dp/0141041331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369592225&sr=8-1&keywords=justice+michael+sandel)

~~~
dkuntz2
I haven't read it, so I'm judging solely off of the title at this point, but,
morally/philosophically/ethically right isn't the same thing as legally right.

And the world might be better if everyone was equal, there's no guarantee to
equality. I was reading something earlier today, and there was a statement
that implied that being human meant that someone had the right to be a 'full
and productive' member of society. I question if that's really a right, and if
so, what makes it so that humans have such a right, but not other animals (one
could argue intelligence, but the arguments I've seen based on intelligence
have only been surface deep, as in 'because intelligence').

Maybe I should read it (I've just put it on my list of things to read at some
point). I can't really make a claim for or against arguments put in the book
without reading them (and the Amazon reviews don't really want to go into any
depth on what the arguments made are).

------
DanBC
The only problem with the Google bus is that it doesn't solve any problems -
it's just a kludgey work-around for some Google employees.

But that's not really Google's fault. People would moan if Google donated
buses to the city. People would moan if Google optimised bus routes or traffic
signalling or road markings or anything.

Having read about the problems JWZ has just putting a door in I can understand
why Google has chosen to not bother grinding through that opaque bureaucracy
and has just installed a fleet of buses.

~~~
GuiA
>The only problem with the Google bus is that it doesn't solve any problems -
it's just a kludgey work-around for some Google employees.

Hmmm, what am I reading?

Of course it's a solution for a problem– the problem is that employees need to
get to work every morning. The solution offered by Google (and others) is much
better than what large companies in areas other than SV do, which is to not
worry about how employees get to work. What those tech companies do is a
significantly better solution because a) it's better for than environment
(less cars on the road), b) it's better for the employees (driving is
stressful), c) it's better for the company (people get work done on the bus).

What would be your solution to the problem?

"Public transportation" is not a valid option, because first of all in the US
it is a travesty; and even if it were amazing, that wouldn't solve the
problem. In countries with great public transportation, people who work for
companies who don't have offices in deeply urban areas still have to get to
work by their own means.

Google (and others) need to bring their employees to work on their massive
privately owned campus; it's not the city's preoccupation to get them there.
Driving is stressful, therefore Google decides to offer a shuttle service. It
doesn't seem like a "kludgey work around" to me, rather like a normal
consequence of a free market.

The only other thing I see is to have every employee live within a 5 mile
radius of the company so they can walk/bike there. Some companies do that
(Foxconn), but surprisingly it goes against the modern era notion of "personal
freedom".

~~~
DanBC
> Of course it's a solution for a problem– the problem is that employees need
> to get to work every morning.

And Google haven't solved that problem apart from a very narrow subset of
workers, all of whom are Google employees. Thus, it's just a kludge.

I reckon Google is more than capable of designing a better public transit
system - they'd have to be allowed to use location data. But there's nothing
in it for Google to do this. They'd just have to battle against entrenched
industries and they'd end up with something that's not as good for their
workers (although better for the planet and for everyone else) than what they
have now.

~~~
packetslave
I'm confused as to when it became Google's job to "design a better
transportation system." Isn't that municipal government's job? Shouldn't we
perhaps be angry with them for not doing THEIR jobs?

Google is doing what's best for its employees. If there was a public
transportation system capable of doing it instead, I'm sure the stockholders'
money could be put to better use.

~~~
DanBC
But local governments are hopeless.

I'm not making an anti-Google post here. I'm saying that there are a bunch of
companies who could be doing interesting stuff but they can't because of
entrenched industries and weird regulations.

------
jrockway
This is a classic case of people being unfamiliar with something they're not
used to. If there weren't busses, all the passengers would be driving their
cars to work.

There is no reasonable public transportation from the areas of San Francisco
where people live and Google's campus in Mountain View. The reality is that
Caltrain mostly goes through residential areas, so any company that wants a
public-transportation-friendly location is kind of out of luck without being
located in the city. And of course, 4th and King is not very close to where
most people in San Francisco live.

I've timed out how long it would take to commute from downtown San Francisco
to Google's campus using only public transportation. It's on the order of 2
hours, and only if you go during rush hour and get the Caltrain shuttle and
the Baby Bullet train. Outside of rush hour, it takes over 3 hours. Nobody is
going to do a 6 hour daily commute; that's insane.

(I've also done the reverse commute -- living in Santa Clara and commuting to
Google SFO. By gBus it only takes an hour and a half, since there is a bus
from the apartment where I usually stay to the MTV campus, and then a bus from
MTV to SFO. If you want to take public transportation, you're out of luck:
it's a $20 cab ride to the Santa Clara train station, and then the usual
Caltrain + Muni ride to the office.)

So the busses aren't a sign of privilege and elitism and class and exuberant
riches and gentrification or whatever "bad" buzz words the leaders of Occupy
Wall Street think they are. They're a way of cutting the emissions (and
stress) of Googlers' commutes and a way of making practical something many
people want: to live in the city but work in the suburbs.

It's true that the real fix would be to nuke the entire San Francisco Bay Area
and rebuild it to be less car-centric, but that's not going to happen.
(Especially in California, where they envy the timeliness of projects like the
Second Avenue Subway and the Big Dig.) You can't undo 100 years of intentional
discrimination against non-car-owners overnight. So there are busses instead:
they use the infrastructure available frugally, save time, and lower the
impact on the environment. If you hate that, it's possible that the problem is
you, not some busses.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
You've nailed it.

I work in Seattle. Before I moved there, I lived and worked in Oregon, in the
Valley. I grew up with working public transportation, with buses that were
affordable and ubiquitous. The school that I went to, Oregon State University,
came to an agreement with the city that it was in, and they cooperated to make
all buses free within city limits. Yes, even for non-students and non-
residents.

Portland's transportation is great, and Seattle's transportation is great.
Every time I visit the Bay for work, I cringe, because I know exactly what to
expect: Hours of trains and buses if I don't want to rent a car. It's utterly
ridiculous.

~~~
jrockway
> Seattle's transportation is great

How do you get to the Microsoft campus from downtown Seattle? Everyone I know
at Microsoft does that commute but drives (and complains about how often the
bridges over Lake Washington are closed or jammed with traffic).

------
alt_f4
Excuse my ignorance, but since when is taking the bus to work considered a
sign of luxury and elitism?

I'd rather drive myself...

~~~
dkuntz2
They're _really_ nice buses. They've got wi-fi and everything.

------
theorique
Upcoming pieces in the series:

 _Why People Hate The Microsoft Cafeteria_

 _Why People Hate The Oracle 401(k) Program_

 _Why People Hate The Adobe Workplace Health Insurance Plan_

Seriously, this is what people complain about?

------
mc-lovin
The idea that the local community has the right to decide who lives there and
what rent prices should be is simply wrong. And I don't mean wrong in the
sense of natural rights, I mean that a democratic decision on these matters
has already been made at a higher level. If people want more rights to decide
what happens in their community their only option is to buy private land and
start a commune.

I'm not a libertarian. I believe that I have a duty to pay taxes, and I even
think tax rates (for me at least) are fair, and I have no problem with
redistribution. But I also have rights, for example to live where I like so
long as I can pay the rent and can find someone to rent to me. My impact on
other people through rent prices is _not_ an externality and does _not_ need
to be controlled by the government. A free country is a country where you can
engage in private transactions as you please, not a country where everything
is done with permission of the community.

Also, a lot of the animosity is fueled by something other than pure economics.
If you read these kinds of articles, the complaints tend to morph from "rents
are rising" to "they aren't part of the community" to "they are socially
awkward white kids". The idea that political action should be taken against a
group because other people find them unattractive or dislikable is sickening
to me.

~~~
srdev
I honestly find a lot of the arguments irksome particularly because many are
predicated on the idea that techies can "afford to live somewhere else." Its a
bit ridiculous to insinuate that its our moral duty to spend extra money from
our paychecks (that we'd rather be saving) to live somewhere we don't want to
so that other people can avoid change.

~~~
mc-lovin
This is what happens when understanding of basic economics and free markets is
equated with libertarianism in most people's eyes.

Without an understanding of economics, people morally equate private
transactions that raise the rent in an area (which causes no externalities)
with polluting someone's water supply or running down bicyclists with your
giant corporate buses (which are externalities).

------
obviouslygreen
Oh wow...

 _"Transport for a breed apart. For a community that is separate but not
equal," said Diamond Dave Whitaker, a self-professed beat poet and rabble-
rouser._

Not only are we comparing this with racial discrimination, we're actually
painting it in a _worse light_. Yes, "rabble-rouser" is a great word for this
person, but what the heck is the point of rousing rabble against this? My
goodness, a company providing transportation for its employees?! The
injustice, the humanity!

~~~
mc-lovin
Maybe he's saying that nerds should be treated as separate but not equal, in
that they should be allocated their own space (SV suburbs like MTV, MLP) and
not allowed to mix with the cool people in SF where they would creep out the
girls.

------
Bjorkbat
I can't say I can fully side with the natives, but there is one particular set
of quotes I couldn't help but reflect on for their mix of arrogance and
ignorance, the ones from the anonymous software engineer.

 _"We feel what we're doing helps make the world a better place. Helping
people share information is a force of empowerment for individuals."_

That's highly debatable. A good majority of the world lacks internet access,
information sharing doesn't sound very empowering considering many companies
essentially milk you for your data, and I really don't want to talk about how
absurd it is to think that your average arbitrary SV startup is a force for
social good.

You know what's empowering? Self-sufficiency. Independence. I'm not talking
about homesteading, just being able to provide oneself with a comfortable life
with all the basic necessities and then some. Most major tech companies and
startups can't really be associated with that form of empowerment unless you
really try and fib a little. I have to admit, first thing that came to mind
was Airbnb, because it allows ordinary people to collect a little extra income
from their home. Anyway, lets continue.

 _"Software engineering is like building something, like a craft, you become
completely absorbed in the task. I really like that."_

I can actually agree with our anonymous software engineer on this statement.
Most people on HN probably can as well. If you say that to someone with no
coding background though, they'll think you're full of it and that you're an
entitled jerk.

Yeah, they probably cherry picked this guy's quotes out of plenty of much more
boring yet appropriate quotes, but at the same time this mindset seems pretty
typical, and probably plays an appreciable role in the grievances of people
with more physical professions.

------
pbiggar
People here seem to be missing the point of the complaints. It's not about
buses - it's about making the city unaffordable for the residents. If google
puts a bus stop near your house or apartment, good luck making rent next year.

[FWIW, I'm pro-google-bus, I just can see the other side, which I think are
misdirected]

------
mauriced
Summary (...practicing expository writing):

Google's buses have been the focal point of much discussion, related to urban
development, social equality, civic engagement, taxes, and business culture.

While the point remains contested, many critics believe that Google's buses
represent a tech elite, that has "invaded" San Francisco with its high
salaries. The critics say this influx is driving up the cost of real estate,
and hurting the greater sense of equality in the Bay Area. Critics claim the
buses are unfair because they use public infrastructure, like roads and bus
stops, but are not public. Critics explain that companies exacerbate the issue
by wiggling their way around corporate tax codes, to minimize tax paid to
governments.

In contrast, the proponents of Google's buses espouse a general admiration
(and at very least, an understanding) of Google's choice to use a private
fleet to help its employees commute. The buses replace cars and their
emissions, thereby decongesting roads; they enable longer work hours, making
employees more productive; and they facilitate a social city-life for many of
its young workers. Proponents recognize that an overhaul of public
transportation in the Bay Area would indeed lead to greater public good, but
concede that this is neither practical, nor Google's responsibility. Further,
while not solving the whole problem, proponents claim the private bus fleet at
least helps.

The debate over the merits of Google's private bus fleet even expand to a
question of social equality, and whether a capitalist nation should expect
equality. While it's clear that only a small fraction of Bay Area residents
enjoy these perks, the notion of equality is not lost. By some opinions, the
magic of American capitalism is not equality of possessions (or abilities),
but equality of opportunity. In this sense, Google and its tech-giant siblings
need not provide services for the entire community, but merely give each
person a fair chance at being hired -- a fair chance at taking part in their
employee benefits programs.

Finally, if deemed worthwhile, Google may choose to make more overt gestures
of friendliness to the community to soften any ill-will from the public.

------
darxius
I don't see how this is anything more than jealousy-infused complaining.

~~~
jstalin
Jealousy is perhaps the most potent political force.

------
faddotio
The Microsoft Connector buses are ubiquitous in the Seattle area. We like them
because they take a lot of cars off the road, particularly along the bridges
which are horribly congested.

------
aphelion
If these activists wanted real change they'd be protesting the NIMBY-ism that
prevents San Francisco from allowing the construction of new housing.

That's an obstacle that has very little to do with techie new-comers and a lot
to do with soi-disant liberal yuppies who have been in the city for decades
and insist that they want to "preserve" San Francisco in a way that totally
prices out working class people from life in the city.

------
blackjack48
_the fault lay not with freespending techies but building restrictions: "The
city has to relax planning controls."_

The SF planning department is frequently derided for micromanaging sensible
projects that would sail through the permitting process in other cities. The
prolonged finessing of architectural details and even paint color can delay
and kill many projects. Though, IMO, the bigger problem is the perverted
process of "community involvement" used by the city. Essentially any permit
issued for any project can be appealed by any single person. This unwavering
obstruction of change is a large part of what makes San Francisco really
expensive.

While the process may be to blame, I think the tech companies should do more
to engage with the local government for mutual benefit: anything from
campaigning for an improved development process, to funding street
improvements that provide space for employee shuttles (so they don't block
local Muni bus stops.)

------
codex
People hate the Google bus because humans do not want to feel inferior or that
they are being treated unfairly. SF has a lot of poor people and a lot of rich
people, and the number of rich are increasing. When you're poor and your
neighbor is poor, you feel, if not OK, decent. When you're poor and you're
neighbor is rich, it pisses you off--especially as they crowd you out of the
city. The bus is a symbol of class divide, pure and simple. Argue about how
techies provide value, how government is broken, etc., but recognize that the
fundamental issue is human psychology--specifically, envy.

