Google Co-Opts Whale-Watching Boat To Ferry Employees

theodp writes "Purportedly intended to defuse tensions over gentrification that have led to blockades and vandalism of Google's ubiquitous shuttles (video), which make use of public San Francisco bus stops (map), Wired reports that Google is now chartering a ferry to take its workers from SF to Silicon Valley. 'We certainly don't want to cause any inconvenience to SF residents, and we're trying alternative ways to get Googlers to work,' Google explained. Inconveniencing whale-seeking visitors to The Aquarium of the Pacific, however, is apparently not considered evil. After learning that Google had co-opted the $4 million, 83-foot, 150-passenger whale-watching catamaran MV/Triumphant to ferry as few as 30-40 Googlers to work, some expressed concerns on Facebook that Google would be The Grinch That Stole Whale Watching Season (not to worry; the boat's slated to make its 'triumphant' return to Long Beach after Google's '30-day trial')."

Comments

Whalewatching

[nospam007]

People in the traffic jams are now able to watch whales getting brought to work by boat.

Re:Whalewatching

[ackthpt]

People in the traffic jams are now able to watch whales getting brought to work by boat.

This has me thinking you are talking about whales commuting to work.

How many lanes do they take otherwise? A boat might really be the answer.

Re: Whalewatching

[Scowler]

Below average BMI? How is that possible, given all that free junk food that permeates the entire Google campus?? There's a reason that " Googler 15" phrase exists.

Re: Whalewatching

[ackthpt]

Below average BMI? How is that possible, given all that free junk food that permeates the entire Google campus?? There's a reason that " Googler 15" phrase exists.

I didn't take a position at Google because they didn't have the right kind of krill on the menu.

Re:Whalewatching

[icebike]

Are the Google programmers not old enough to drive or what's going on there? Why does Google have to drive them to school^wwork like a soccer mom?

One bus displaces 30 to 60 cars.

If more companies did this our streets would be less crowded.

It seems the main point of contention here is that these buses made an arrangement with the city to use existing
bus stops, (which didn't inconvenience anybody and simply made better use of a public resource).

Had they set up their own bus stops, on private property, perhaps near park-and-ride lots I suspect the protests
would have been exactly the same.

Because this issue isn't about the buses. Its racism, pure and simple.

These Google employees bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the communities they live in.
That creates jobs and income for everything from the groceries bagger to the car dealers and the condo builders.
It also drives out crime, because educated affluent people demand better policing and more police.
Oakland, of all cities needs crime reduction, by any means possible, including affluent tax payers.

But crime doesn't like to be driven out. And the gangs start fighting back by stirring up trouble, trying
to build an US vs THEM sentiment in the community. Make no mistake, "Gentrification" is a racist concept.

Re:Whalewatching

[Anonymous Coward]

Buses + Laptops + WiFi = More hours spent working. Google offers many perks, but most of them can be traced back to getting their workers to spend more time working, whether it be free food, onsite dry cleaning or the buses. When your employees cost an average of $100/hr to employ, a perk doesn't have to save much time to be profitable.

Re:Whalewatching

[wardred]

I'd rather be working, daydreaming, socializing, sleeping,browsing the web, or nearly anything other than having to drive in commute traffic. It's a perk. As Anonymous pointed out, if only a few of their employees do more work while on the bus, or get their daily fix of Slashdot out of the way before getting to work, it probably saves them money. Heck, even if it simply means a small portion of their employees who don't like driving and live in the city stay with Google, they're probably ahead of the curve.

Re:Whalewatching

[Applehu Akbar]

AC is too young to remember when company commuter buses were Good, because they reduced resource usage and freed up highway space taken up by all those lone-driver cars. Greens actually lobbied for cities to subsidize them. But the Bay Area left is fighting a different battle now. Apparently the company buses represent class privilege, which makes them Bad once again.

Let's attack the real problem, which is San Francisco's insane development planning laws, which just this week responded to an ongoing shortage of apartment units by making it illegal to store anything other than a car in one's own garage. You have to go chew up more of that precious Environment renting a storage unit to keep your fireplace logs, barbecue gril and artificial Christmas tree. Time to zero out the funding for these crazies and let private enterprise rocket free to build apartments and condos to relieve the housing crisis.

Re:Whalewatching

[anagama]

This is a boat, not a bus. Now, boats can be incredibly efficient means of transportation if scaled up large enough and loaded to capacity, but using a small boat for a small group is astoundingly inefficient unless you're looking at a sailboat, which won't be fast enough for commuter purposes (or if so, certainly not dry enough).

This is the boat designer and a similar boat: http://www.teknicraft.com/showcase/kachemak-voyager

If we assume that Triumphant is similar to this sister:

engines: 2 x Caterpillar C32 ACERT
hp: 1081kW(1450bhp) @2300rpm

That is apparently not combined hp but the hp of each engine. Only two Cat engines hit 2300 RPM and one is 1600 hp so it can't be that one -- the other one is a 1450 hp model that burns 77.4 gph -- with twins, that amounts to 154.8 gallons/hr. See pdf page 9: http://marine.cat.com/cda/files/1377726/7/Cat%20C32%20ACERT%20Spec%20Sheet%20-%20Commercial.pdf

So each passenger is probably responsible for 3-4 gallons of diesel per hour to ride this boat. In other words, it would probably be greener to send each employee to work alone in an F150.

Re: Whalewatching

[PenguinOnCowboy]

The real problem is zoning laws in Palo Alto do not allow high density housing. Google wants worker bees, but no one wants them to live in Palo Alto.

Re:Whalewatching

[anagama]

Actual boat specs:
http://www.allamericanmarine.com/project/83-whale-watch-tour-catamaran/

It looks like the engines in the boat are the ones listed on page 8 of the pdf I referenced above (the website for the boat says the engines will do 2300 rpm, but the Cat materials say 2100 rpm). Anyway, at 2100 rpm, the 1300 hp version burns 64.4 gph, so two of them would 128.8 gph.

Now certainly it doesn't run always at top speed, but it probably still burns in the high 50s gph per engine at cruising speed.

Re:Whalewatching

[anagama]

For reference, a Gilig hybrid 40 passenger (seated) plus 32 passenger (standing) bus gets about 4.64 mpg (with 30 passengers, that would be 139 passenger miles per gallon).

see pages 3 & 4:
http://146.186.225.57/buses/reports/409.pdf?1347373958

Back to the boat, with a cruising speed just a hair over 31 mph, and assuming 100 gph to cruise, that boat gets 0.31 mpg. At 30 passengers, that is 9.3 passenger miles per gallon.

The thirstiest hummer gets 10 mpg (combined) and with one passenger, that would be 10 passenger mpg. If only city driving occurred, the boat would just edge out the hummer's 9 mpg city rating.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2010_Hummer_H3.shtml

So, Google really could just give each employee a hummer and at least break even green-wise.

Re:Whalewatching

[k8to]

People who work for Google is not a race.

It's a class thing.

Re:Whalewatching

[k8to]

Or, looking at it from another perspective:

You can get a full workday with less time wasted. If you stand up for yourself this means you can live in a city you want to live in, and have a rewarding job, and not have many hours a day spent driving a car.

Seriously, no one likes driving hours a day in commute-traffic. Avoiding that is something any sane person wants.

Re:Whalewatching

[icebike]

People who oppose Google employees while screaming gentrification are raceist, and gentrification is the rallying cry of one particular racist ethnicity, the identity of which I'll leave you to research at your leisure.

Citation Needed

[pdbogen]

theodp, do you have any source whatsoever to actually back up your assertion that the use of the boat is intended to defuse tension?

And since when is "inconveniencing" tourists by chartering just ONE of the boats "in the fleet" considered evil, as you imply?

Re:Citation Needed

[Workaphobia]

Apparently if a boat is used for something besides its original purpose, no other boat can ever replace it. You know, cause boats and tasks mate for life.

I'm no free market fanatic, but it's like they're *trying* to misunderstand basic supply and demand.

Re:Citation Needed

[theodp]

From the Wired article linked to in the post: "The move, first reported by local CBS affiliate KPIX, seems aimed at defusing tensions that have led to blockades and vandalism of the ubiquitous shuttles, which make use of public San Francisco bus stops."

Re:Citation Needed

[gnick]

That was my impression too. This sounds like the equivalent of, "a company rented a van for a business trip that a family could have used for sight-seeing."

Re:Citation Needed

[pdbogen]

OK, that's better than nothing; but Wired's unfounded editorializing isn't really a valid source, either. It seems a stretch to believe that Google would be so tone deaf as to think chartering a boat would appease the anti-Gentrification protesters that are taking there angst out on Google.

Re:Citation Needed

[theodp]

This was a state of the art whale watching boat christened just lasr July, coincidentally the same week that a bunch of folks from Google and the [Eric] Schmidt Ocean Institute were attending Ocean Exploration 2020 at the Aquarium of the Pacific with some of the world's foremost ocean explorers.

Re: Citation Needed

[pdbogen]

Yes, clearly my slashdot account with excellent karma in good standing for ten years is a Google PR sock puppet.

I have a bias, just like others do. But, as it happens, I live in the city, work for a tech company in the city, and walk to work. I don't use the Google shuttle, I don't personally care what happens to it, but it's simple fact that the Google shuttle isn't the problem, isn't the cause of the problem, and isn't even a symptom of the problem; the protesters have simply selected it as a symbol.

Re:Citation Needed

[AJH16]

Particularly since they are using it in the off-season to keep the boat in use year round. Whales are in Hawaii now.

Re:Citation Needed

[ganjadude]

and I hate to sound harsh but.... so? This is how it is in NYC as well, and most major cities, properties are better taken care of, costs rise and eventually you push yourself out if you are not making enough, so you move a little further outside of the city, get 3X the house for 1/3rd the price and usually are happier in the end anyway. Lets face it, not everyone can live where they want to, I sure as hell dont want to be where I am but I cant afford to move where I do, I dont go running around throwing a hissy fit about it like these clowns in SF though

Re:Citation Needed

[pdbogen]

Interestingly, the residents are a micro version of those same poor displaced whale-watchers. What's happening to them is a free market economy. They rent an asset owned by someone else. That owner has an unarguable right to seek the best return on their investment: It is greatly in their interest to rent their property for as much money as they can.

Why aren't you angry at the landlords for raising rents and using the Ellis act to evict people? That's not Google's fault. Google isn't driving people out; they're just paying their employees well and adapting to their needs (in this case, providing a shuttle from SF to Redwood, since a number of employees live in SF).

Why aren't you angry at the city for not issuing housing permits for more economic high-density housing? (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/) Google isn't the one that lobbied and protested to keep the 120-year-old Victorian your 60-year-old woman lives in intact, instead of replacing it with a highrise.

Sure, it sucks that the place you lived forever is changing in ways you don't like. It sucks that residents' NIMBY-esque actions to stop that change turned out worse for them in the long run, because someone came along that's willing and able to pay more for your space than they are, and they resisted the kind of development that would've helped to make enough space for everyone.

If you don't want to be driven from "your" rented home, you have to own the place you live. If you can't afford to own it but you can afford to rent it, that means you're living in a kind of bubble: Your landlord thinks the land is worth more than what you're paying, meaning they think they can get more rent for it later, meaning at some point or another the occupant will be paying what the owner wants, whether the occupant is you or someone working for a startup that's getting paid five times what you get paid. It's a free market, and shit like this happens.

Re:Citation Needed

[s122604]

Really?

Wow, as much as I would like to work in the "big leagues" of the tech world, I guess I'm happy to be in flyover country where the mortgage on my 3 bedroom 2.5 bath house is just over 1000 a month.

Re:Citation Needed

[Workaphobia]

So? That makes me about as mad as when a corporation charters a private jet, when I think of all the people who would've liked to fly in that jet instead. You're really not selling me on the whole "Having nice things is despicable" argument. (Before you call that a strawman, I'll note that you're the one who put this action in the context of google's "Don't be evil" motto.)

Re:Citation Needed

[mspohr]

Whale watching season is over for the year.
It was great in November and we did see a few driving down the coast in December but they've gone to Baja and they won't be back until spring.

Re:Citation Needed

[MightyYar]

There are some real problems with this, though. The US is fairly unique in that the poor live near city centers, due to urban decay and white flight among other things. Europe usually has the opposite problem - poor concentrated in the suburbs. Poor concentrated anywhere is a bad problem to have. The problem remains that the jobs tend to be closer to the rich people, but now you are making the poor drive cars into the city for work instead of taking the bus or train when they live in an urban area. Access to services is also worse when the poor are forced into a suburban setting - everything is more spread out geographically.

Anyway, it's not Google's fight - but it is a symptom of an unhealthy housing situation. You don't want all the people of means to be completely disconnected from the problems of everyday people.

Re:Citation Needed

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm sure rent control, impacting the investment to build more apartments, and environmental studies, raising general building costs, and probably plenty of NIMBY snottiness with building approval boards has nothing to do with it.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Googlers are part of the 99% -- including the ones living in SF.

You needed to earn around $350k/year in 2009 to be in the top 1% (http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/top-1-percent-earn.aspx). It is probably higher now. The vast majority of Googlers joined after the millionaire creating IPO and earn much less than $350k.

Re: Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame the bus, it is a symptom, not the problem.

The root cause lies in the south valley communities. They have anti development policies in place that make it impossible to build sufficient housing for the bay workforce.

This sends Bay Area workers looking for housing as far away as Gilroy, Santa Cruz and Tracy.

Fix the permit policies in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Cupertino and it will go a long way toward helping SF housing prices.

Those communities want the tax revenue from the employees, but not. The cost of providing services to them. They love that the house prices increase to ridiculous levels to get the property tax revenue while still supporting only a small population.

If you want to focus your anger, pick the right targets.

Re:Citation Needed

[mi]

The problem is that the cheapest 1brs in SF cost $2800/month.

How is it a Google's problem — or a Google's fault? Are you going to argue, a corporation is "evil" because it pays its employees high wages — which leads to them being able to pay higher rents?

kids in mission who turn a vibrant ethnic neighborhood into Sharon Green in palo alto.

And there is nothing wrong with it — those "kids" still have to live somewhere. Are you going to restrict their freedom — for the dubious goal of preserving "a vibrant ethnic neighborhood"?

Re:Citation Needed

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I'm not sure if you'd consider my area to be flyover country as it is the 6th largest city in the US, yet my 3 bedroom 2 bath (with a pool) house is $700 a month (which I split because I don't live here alone.) It's a pretty nice house too; probably far more comfortable to live in than something four times the price in SF.

Re:Citation Needed

[Entropy98]

The problem is that the cheapest 1brs in SF cost $2800/month.

Build more housing.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is a symptom of an unhealthy housing situation" caused by Prop 13 making commercial development more attractive than residential development to those interested in building a tax base.

Re:Citation Needed

[jeffmeden]

Really?

  Wow, as much as I would like to work in the "big leagues" of the tech world, I guess I'm happy to be in flyover country where the mortgage on my 3 bedroom 2.5 bath house is just over 1000 a month.

You share that sentiment with a lot of people (including myself) but it is bad because it stratifies the industries that can afford to pay for gentrified workers vs those that prefer to go after the best cost workers. For example, why should your talent not be brought to bear at Google? Just because you find it unconscionable to pay $3000 a month to rent a meager apartment barely big enough for 2 to live comfortably (forget having an actual family)? Google (like many large, mobile companies before it) is setting itself up to become topheavy and inefficient with all those overpaid, overspending d-bags. Sure, the free market will sort it out, but in the long run the destruction that is left when bubbles like that grow/pop is bad for the country.

Re:Citation Needed

[mjwalshe]

If it was only the 1% (like central London) no ordinary Googler could afford to live in SF

Re:Citation Needed

[mjwalshe]

It seems that renters in the USA want all the advantages of owning a property without the downsides

Re:Citation Needed

[sycodon]

It makes the rhetoric about taking care of the poor and underprivileged emanating from these geographic areas ring especially hollow.

The whole area is a hot mess of progressive policies and political correctness. Yet, when it comes to money, all else falls away to what's best for the bottom line.

Re:Citation Needed

[Cimexus]

That rent is on par with many cities around the world (in Europe, Asia, Australia and even other North American cities such as NYC). Hell, even some not-so-major cities ... I was paying only marginally less than that when I used to live in Canberra (Australia) which is a relatively small, suburban place of 350,000 people. I now live in the US in a moderately-pricey city and I get a lot more floorspace for the same money. Close to double, I'd say.

US rents are renowned worldwide for being insanely cheap (even before the property market crash, let alone now). SF just happens to be one of the few cities in the US where the property prices approach the 'norm' for large global cities (which let's face it, SF is, being the center of the tech industry). I'm not sure there's much you can do about it as it's all based on supply, demand and the income/salaries of people living in the area.

Re:Citation Needed

[MightyYar]

That seems reasonable except for the fact that most other cities also have gentrification without being subject to Prop 13.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is a 60 year old woman living in a 2400 sqft Victorian by herself? We should get mad at people who are hoarding housing in a market where it is in short supply.

Re: Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. Oh, but you can't. Because the same people complaining about gentrification have also taken great pains to limit development so their special corner of the world never changes.

Fun for them, the free market doesn't like to be manipulated.

Re:Citation Needed

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Careful what you wish for.

By doing that you also send the people with money away; probably not a good thing to do to your local economy. France is currently finding this out the hard way -- their prime minister thought it would be a good idea to tax the rich until either they are no longer rich, or they just flat out leave the country. He got his way alright for the most part, but it really didn't work out how he intended; that country now has some of its highest unemployment rates ever in some areas.

You know who else shared your views by the way? Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, and Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. Their countries became pretty poor and oppressive after the glorious revolution to get rid of the rich folks.

Re:Citation Needed

[bob_super]

The US is just finally learning the very European art of hating other people flaunting their money. The twist in this case is that googlers are not stratospherically paid, and many are just jealous that some companies take better care of their people than others.

I mean, really "hey, here's a free bus so you can be more productive." is causing unrest...
Google's reaction? "hey here's a free boat so you can still be more productive"

What do people expect Google to do? Cut salaries and build dorms in Mountain View? Outsource to China or learn worker management from Dubai? Stop trying to help their employees be happy productive people, and turn into unhappy whipped people walmart-style?
People should think before they call them evil. That boat isn't cheap, and they have no obligation to pay their people much, or help them get home from work.

Re:Citation Needed

[bitt3n]

Particularly since they are using it in the off-season to keep the boat in use year round. Whales are in Hawaii now.

Great! Google hijacked so many boats the poor unemployed whales had to move to Hawaii. What's next, gentrification of the clouds?

Re: Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy this man a cookie.

If you live in the Bay Area, you know why it's so screwed up.

Prop 13.

Your neighbor can live in a $1.6million house but pay taxes like its worth $160k.

Prop 13 has created a very unhealthy real estate market where there is significant incentive not to move, even if you want to.

Re:Citation Needed

[Cimexus]

Mod parent up - as someone who moved from Australia to the US recently, this was one of the things that struck me almost immediately about most US cities. They are 'inside out' in terms of property prices/desirability.

In almost all Australian cities (and for that matter European and Asian cities), the closer you get to the CBD/downtown, the pricier property is. People want to live close to work, close to the vibrant downtown lifestyle (shops, cafes, restaurants, entertainment, nightlife etc.). Right in the urban core you have the super-expensive high-density places where the young, rich and hip want to live. Then as you go out in rings you get suburban housing of gradually decreasing price. First, the older, leafy, established suburbs with big old houses and established families that may have held the land for a long time. Expensive, because it's close to downtown while still offering detached houses rather than apartment living. Then mid-range suburbs ... then right at the outskirts of the city, the newest-built dwellings that are also generally the cheapest because they are far away. This where you'll find young families and first home buyers. They may eventually sell and move closer in once they can afford to. Or they may stay there (and eventually, these outer areas aren't as 'outer' anymore as the city expands).

But in the US it's all backwards. The areas in/close to downtown are the cheapest and no one seems to want to live there, and the expensive houses are all at the outskirts. It's kind of weird. Gives many US downtowns a kind of drab, utilitarian feeling ... a place people go to work but not live. (There are exceptions of course, NYC being the most obvious one, but sounds like SF is that way too, though I haven't been there).

The other point the parent made was excellent too - you don't want to segregate the social classes too much (either by concentrating the poor at the outskirts or in the center of the city). I used to live in Canberra, Australia, and one very noticeable thing there is that they have public housing developments (subsidized/free housing for poor people) scattered relatively evenly across all neighbourhoods. From the wealthiest to the poorest. You can easily have a block of public housing next to trendy modern townhouses or across the road from multi-million dollar ranch-style homes. This means you don't get that disconnect between social groups (and also means you don't get much crime, as you don't have these concentrated areas of desperate people where that activity can thrive)

Re:Citation Needed

[MrEricSir]

You're missing the larger point: the Bay Area hasn't built much in the way of housing in the past 30 years, despite the fact that many successful companies have expanded rapidly.

This problem was completely avoidable, nobody "had" to be pushed out.

Re: Citation Needed

[Entropy98]

Exactly, and I get why they don't want to build more high rises, it's a beautiful city, but you can't limit the supply of something in high demand and get upset when the price goes up.

Why don't they build a bunch of high rises downtown and keep the rest of the city the same?

Re:Citation Needed

[Mr. Theorem]

The wealthy-Googlers-forcing-the-99%-out-of-SF problem is exacerbated, if not entirely the result of, a darkly ironic twist on zoning and development. There is too little supply and much demand, for housing, so prices go up.

But let's compare SF and the Bay Area to NYC. SF itself has a population density (17k/mi^2) that's less than half of Brooklyn (36k/mi^2), which is NYC's second-most dense borough and which itself has half the density of Manhattan (70k/mi^2). The suburban counties south of SF, San Mateo (1.6k/mi^2) and Santa Clara (1.4k/mi^2) have roughly a third of the population density of the nearest suburban counties to NYC, Nassau (4.7k/mi^2) and Bergen, NJ (3.9k/mi^2).

So it's not like it couldn't be possible to house everyone, to increase housing supply to match demand. But many (but certainly not all) of the same voices who are now complaining about the influx of rich Googlers came of age in a time when developers and development were destroying so much that was good and building much that was bad, and so the only mode of civic-minded activism which makes sense to them is to STOP THE GREEDY DEVELOPERS. Stop them from upzoning, stop them from increasing population density, stop them from building enough housing for everyone.

Transit in the Bay Area is a mess, and Google and the other tech companies using the Muni bus stops isn't helping. But with so many employees who wish to live in SF, Google really ought to abandon the outdated suburban office park campus idea and build itself a large building in San Francisco itself.

Re: Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

You all are wrong. SF is building a shit ton of housing. half the city is cranes, especially downtown. the problem is they're all million dollar condos. believe it or not builders want to maximize their profits.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

is somebody who makes $75k/year poor and underprivelaged? no, but they can't afford SF. rule of thumb is rent should be 1/3 your gross income. so $3000/mo is $9000/mo gross income which is $108,000. Six figures for a 1br.

I'm not saying help the poor and underprivelaged. I'm saying longtime residents are pissed and google sending employees by boat won't make a difference and they know that.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

Sharon Green is a very nice place, but it's an expensive housing complex for tech workers and entry level ibankers. That's fine. I'm saying that the Mission is becoming sharon green, and believe it or not people who aren't in those industries can't afford to live in the city.

the mission is neither of the things you describe, the mission is becoming sharon green. also for crime I think you're thinking of the tenderloin, which is also becoming gentrified.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent poster is correct, but doesn't realize why. "Gentrification" is just a word use to make racism sound good. When the poster says "Ethnic", what they really mean is "Not-White".

From the racist dictionary: White Flight: The evil activity of those scum bag white people of moving out of expensive cities with the excuse that they can live in nicer homes with safe places for their children to play. Clearly a conspiracy by the inferior race to make their betters poor by driving property values down, and increasing crime.

Gentrification: The evil activity of those scum bag white people of moving into cities, increasing demand, and thus driving up prices. Clearly a conspiracy by the inferior race to drive their betters from the neighborhoods that the inferior race was evil for moving out of in the first place.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

the city is building like crazy, but everything is $1m condos. believe it or not developers want to maximize profits. you're saying the city should force the developers to build affordable housing for people making 100k? that sounds like a lot of govt intervention to me.

I'm not saying the problem can be fixed, I'm just saying this is why people are pissed. it's not about google buses or taking ferries, and you're being purposefully obtuse if you suggest otherwise.

Re:Citation Needed

[Belial6]

Anti-Gentrification? You mean racists.

Re: Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

fine, then the 5%. The cutoff for the 5% is $160k, and the vast majority of googlers are above this. so the 5% can afford a 1br apartment. maybe even a 2br 1ba.

Re: Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

they're building like crazy. it's all $1m condos. developers want to maximize prices. are you suggesting that the city force developers to build housing for people 100k? sounds like communism to me. I'm not saying the govt could intervene, I'm just saying this is why people are pissed.

Re:Citation Needed

[sycodon]

No one is holding a gun to their heads and forcing them to live there.

Re: Citation Needed

[Entropy98]

Well the city isn't getting anymore land so it's either build up or not at all.

Re: Citation Needed

[Entropy98]

If the market rate for a 1br apartment is $2800/month no one is going to build $500/month apartments. Prices aren't going to come down until supply catches up with demand. They could approve every building permit and it would still take years to get to a reasonable level.

Re:Citation Needed

[icebike]

In almost all Australian cities (and for that matter European and Asian cities), the closer you get to the CBD/downtown, the pricier property is. People want to live close to work, close to the v Right in the urban core you have the super-expensive high-density places where the young, rich and hip want to live. Then as you go out in rings you get suburban housing of gradually decreasing price.

So what? Different cultures do things differently.

There are vibrant lifestyle (shops, cafes, restaurants, entertainment, nightlife etc.) available all over a city, in many trendy locations, and most of it is not downtown, where there is zero parking.

Our culture is different. Owning your own house has always been a significant part of the American dream, and if you can't find a single family dwelling close enough to where you work an apartment or condo is the next best thing. But most people do not want to live in downtown. And as soon as they get married, the first thing they want to do is move their children out of the meat-market and drug cesspool that all those "rich trendy hipsters" you are so fond of invariably turn any place they congregate into.

A city highrise is no place to raise a family.

This limits the value of center-city residential property. However that same property has a higher value as Office complexes. So, being a somewhat free country, builders tend to build office complexes, and old apartment buildings are renovated and made into offices. There is still plenty of downtown housing left, but even the hipsters don't generally want it.

Re:Citation Needed

[icebike]

paying a programmer that has 10 times higher productivity only 2 times more than industry average is underpaying,

10 times?
Wow. Careful you don't break your arm trying to pat yourself on the back.

Re:Citation Needed

[AJH16]

Wait, if the whales got to move to Hawaii by getting unemployed and poor, then I've been doing it wrong this whole time...

Re:Citation Needed

[nedlohs]

Our culture is different. Owning your own house has always been a significant part of the American dream

You have that pretty much exactly backwards.

Sure these are wikiepedia but you can follow the darn references if you hate that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream - Freedom and opportunity to move upwards in society through work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Dream - I want to own me a house.

I'm not sure where the OP is coming from. Australia has always been about the suburbs. There's nothing like NYC in Australia (for example) where a chunk of the population actually lives in the city rather than in the surrounding suburbs.

Re:Citation Needed

[Whorhay]

Even the Dorms in Mountain View aren't affordable. When I was there over a decade ago a single bedroom was $1700 a month.

Re: Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a flip side to this. I have elderly family that lives on Mercer Island in Seattle, Wa. Washington doesn't have a prop-13-like law to keep property taxes fixed. When they moved there and built their house, there was almost nothing there. Since that time, the island has been developed significantly and most of the properties in their area go for $1m+. They're fixed-income retirees who simply want to continue to live in the house they've inhabited for the past 50 years. But their house is continually appraised for more and more money and their property taxes have become overly expensive to the point where they're eating into what little savings they have. At this point, it's looking like they'll be forced to sell.

Granted, when they do sell, they'll probably get between $1m and $2m for it, but as 90+ year olds, they really won't be able to enjoy that money and moving will be a traumatic experience...many elderly people don't survive when they're forced to uproot their lives like that. Legislation like prop 13 does protect retirees from having their property taxes inflated through no fault of their own.

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

Do you live in SF? San Francisco has rent control, so it's not really all "long time residents" who are pissed.

Just look at the protesters so far (and note the number of hoodies, knit caps and stupid hipster beards) - ie. a lot of them are the 20-somethings who don't work at Google (ie. don't make 100k+) but want to live in the city so they can spend most of their disposable income buying $12 drinks instead of paying extra rent. Face it, SF is expensive. Expensive to live, to eat, to go out. Private parking spaces can cost $400+/mo. But it's not the only place to live in the Bay Area. And you don't hear these people complaining that San Carlos or Menlo Park is also becoming less affordable. Why? Because 20-something hipsters don't want to live there. Wah wah.

And despite what people may want you to think, it's not only the tech employees who are making $100k+ a year there. According to the Chronicle, over 1 in 3 *public* city employees makes over $100k, and the article was from 3 years ago (and doesn't even count their ridiculous health benefits or pensions).

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

Transit in the Bay Area is a mess, and Google and the other tech companies using the Muni bus stops isn't helping.

I agrees with almost everything you wrote except this in fact Google and other tech companies using the Muni bus stops *is* helping. Some of those employees don't even own their own car, and if they do they aren't adding to the already painful 101 commute every day. And it's not like these buses are somehow making big differences in the Muni bus schedules. 90% of the time the stops just sit empty, anyway - a few extra buses stopping there just seems like better use of resources to me. And now that SF is going to tax the bus operators for their use they expect to make a couple million dollars a year in extra city revenue. Seems like that money could also be put to helping the transit situation...

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

Sharon Green is "a very nice place"?? Yeah, right!

It constantly gets horrible reviews for the facilities (which look nice at first but are thin-walled and run down) and the ridiculous rent. It's basically a large complex where people with too much money - probably getting a new job and being relocated - and new to the area move to without doing their research, and then usually try to move out of as fast as they can. And there is NOTHING else there within a short walking distance compared to the Mission (or almost anywhere in SF) since it's behind Stanford in a residential neighborhood.

Trying to compare it to the Mission, with its many restaurants, bars, and individual 2/3 story apt/condo buildings that are OBVIOUSLY NEVER going to turn into a 1000+ unit complex with a couple of shops and a Starbucks nearby is absurd enough to make the rest of your argument pretty hard to pay attention to :)

Re:Citation Needed

[icebike]

I'm voting for myth.

Most programmers I know (and I know a lot of them) can work furiously on a project and produce a lot in a short time, but ONLY for a short time. Then they either burn out, or have to come out of the basement to tat.

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

How is this "informative"? It's completely incorrect in all ways!

Not only is this *right* in the middle of the grey whale watching season, but they (along with, BY DEFINISION all of the whales that migrate from the Arctic to Baja) do it NORTH/SOUTH, not East/West. And they also like to stay within sight of the coast line, which is why you can usually see them from many viewpoints up and down the CA coast, not just from boats.

I mean, whoever own this boat runs a business and so IMO they should rent it to the customer that pays the most (and there are MANY others anyway). My only beef is with people who make up stupid shit like this and no one even bothers to fact check it before modding it up...

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

That's not true at all

Gray whale watching season is Dec-May, and the peak time in LA & San Diego is right NOW (note this boat was originally from Long Beach). it takes whales more than a few days to swim 2000 miles, you know :) And they don't all do it in the same few weeks. A coworker went on a whale watching trip out of SF just last weekend and said they saw a bunch of grays.

Re:Citation Needed

[theodp]

And I'd point back to the Google spokesperson's explanation that this was intended not to inconvenience anyone. :-)

Truth be told, I can't fathom what Google's doing here - it doesn't seem to be a viable means of transportation economically or logisticallly, it inconveniences visitors to an Aquarium that receives support from Google and its Chairman, and in general seems like something dreamed up by the Marie Antoinette PR agency. :-)

Maybe time will reveal a better explanation.

Re:Citation Needed

[AJH16]

Whales do in fact go from the Arctic to Hawaii and the peak season is around now. I'm sure they also go down the coast, but I would have expected them to have made it past San Francisco by now. I admittedly only know about what the peak season is in Hawaii though (since I was there a few weeks ago) and don't know when they peak for central California. I just figured it would be before the peak in Hawaii since Hawaii is further to go.

Re:Citation Needed

[Rockoon]

The US is just finally learning the very European art of hating other people flaunting their money.

An art not based on reason, tho.

It used to be when someone was driving a high end car down the road, the people behind them thought "well they seem to be doing well for themselves" but these days they think "another rich mother fucker" and then tweet about it on their $300 cell phone with the $100/mo contract before going home to watch the $150/mo cable television service that they subscribe to.

The reality is that, aside from recent recession issues, nearly all Americans have done very well for themselves even while making incredibly poor financial decisions such as paying $100/mo for a fucking phone or $150/mo for 500 channels of crap.

These things are so expensive because so many are doing well for themselves. Its really that simple, leading to the obvious conclusion that most people are jealous of people with more, and its a fucking petty jealousy.

Re: Citation Needed

[a_ghostwheel]

And that is where stuff like reverse mortgage, home equity credit, etc come in.

Re:Citation Needed

[bob_super]

They pay a lot more taxes if you don't discourage them from living in the city.

They have to work in Mountain View, but they choose to live in SF.
Google helps them live in SF.
From a macroeconomic standpoint, this is one the best things to happen to SF in a long time: high-income people getting helped to live in the city, and not clog the highways at rush hour.

On the other hand, SF isn't exactly tiny, Googlers don't all live there. There's a bit of hysteria by the people renting (don't hear homeowners complain much) near the gentrificating areas.
They should move to Beijing and see their home razed overnight because some politician took the right bribe.

Re:Citation Needed

[Dahamma]

Ok, sorry, I was too harsh, honest mistake I guess :) But it's peak season in California right now for gray whales, most of which follow within a few miles of the West Coast of North America - they don't generally go anywhere near Hawaii AFAIK (I think that's mostly humpback whales?)

Gray whales have made a huge comeback so there are literally thousands (like 15k+?) of them migrating from Alaska to Baja and back from around Dec-May. Since they don't all just pick up and go on the same day, it's a fairly continuous thing over that time (whale watching tours pretty much run continuously in that season). In fact, given how many of them travel in such a small part of the ocean, gray whales (rather than other baleens like blue or humpback) are the main draw for CA whale watching tours (like the boat in TFA is used for), since people are almost guaranteed to see a few.

Re:Citation Needed

[jwhitener]

It depends on the city.

For example, New York City, Seattle, Portland Oregon all have rich expensive downtown property.

When the situation is reversed, like in Detroit, it is usually due to a failed city. Something that once made the city rich collapsed, and all the wealthy left, leaving the downtown to rot.

Re:Citation Needed

[jwhitener]

Or vote for people that are willing to implement some sort of rent control.

Re:Citation Needed

[russotto]

You needed to earn around $350k/year in 2009 to be in the top 1% (http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/top-1-percent-earn.aspx). It is probably higher now. The vast majority of Googlers joined after the millionaire creating IPO and earn much less than $350k.

That's household income. There's a lot of top-company tech workers who are married to other top-company tech workers, and if you believe Glassdoor, most of them will be in the top 1% for household income. Top 1% for individual income is probably within reach for many such workers.

Re: Citation Needed

[spatley]

Eh, Mercer Island has been ironically referred to as "poverty rock" since the 60's. It had always been a luxury neighborhood. Try houses in Columbia City that were 25k in 1974 and now list for 600.

Re:Citation Needed

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Compared to what? France? Yeah I'd say it's doing pretty damn good compared to them.

Re:Citation Needed

[ganjadude]

I live in a 2500 sq/ft home on 4 acres of land 50 miles from NYC, under 200K

fuck city living is all im sayin

Re:Citation Needed

[jd2112]

Our culture is different. Owning your own house has always been a significant part of the American dream

You have that pretty much exactly backwards.

Sure these are wikiepedia but you can follow the darn references if you hate that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream - Freedom and opportunity to move upwards in society through work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Dream - I want to own me a house.

I'm not sure where the OP is coming from. Australia has always been about the suburbs. There's nothing like NYC in Australia (for example) where a chunk of the population actually lives in the city rather than in the surrounding suburbs.

New American Dream: I want a job that pays more than the one I have at Starbucks so I can start paying off my student loans and perhaps someday move out of my parent's house.

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

What exactly is a "vibrant ethnic neighborhood?"

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

it's like pornography, you know it when you see it. let me know next time you're in SF and I"ll give you a tour of the stuff that's still left.

Re:Citation Needed

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's because inner cities have spectacularly bad schools. Not many kids graduate, and many who do can't even read. You want your kid next to those kids?

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

let me know next time you're in SF and I"ll give you a tour of the stuff that's still left.

Tomorrow.

Re: Citation Needed

[Zynder]

I understand their dismay and the whole idea of keeping their life long home, but would someone PLEASE offer me 1mil for my house! People who claim money doesn't buy happiness have obviously never had money.

Re:Citation Needed

[afgam28]

I'm also an Australian living in the US and I've also noticed that cities are inside-out. But I don't buy the "different cultures do things differently" reasoning, because after having experienced both first hand, I know that our cultures and values are just not all that different. Most Australians love living in the suburbs and in fact the "Great Australian Dream" is to own a suburban home (it's not just a big part of it, the two are actually synonymous). Because of this the suburbs of cities like Sydney and Melbourne sprawl just like American cities of similar size. And like in the US, younger people (yes, including the hipsters) prefer the urban life too.

The difference is that due to government policies like more comprehensive healthcare, social security and public transport, the downtown areas aren't a cesspool of drugs. And if you remove the drugs, crime and homelessness, and set up some good schools and parks, what exactly is wrong with raising a family in a downtown highrise?

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

tomorrow sat or tomorrow sun? unclear when you posted.

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

Saturday, today now.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

I can't do now because I have Pilates coming up.

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

lol ok, enjoy your latte. Maybe you can do a link to a google map of some sites you find interesting.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

take bart to mission and 16th st station then yelp for a good burrito.

Re: Citation Needed

[markass530]

reverse mortgage, problem solved

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

I shall do so

Re:Citation Needed

[interkin3tic]

I've said it before, Google REALLY needs to change their slogan. Not because they actually are more or less evil or anything like that, just that people go to great lengths to construe everything google does as evil just to sound clever because of that motto.

They should change their motto to "Murder children with rusty screwdrivers, literally shit on the constitution, and end the world with fire." Then people wouldn't give them SHIT for doing stuff like this.

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

what did you think?

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

I decided to go tomorrow instead lol

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

Is there something in particular you wanted me to notice?

Re:Citation Needed

[Cimexus]

Different cultures are indeed different, but Australians and Americans are the same on this front. Both want their suburban home. In fact that's exactly what the 'Australian Dream' is ... your own home on a quarter-acre block.

The difference is that those suburban homes are more expensive closer to downtown in Australia, and more expensive further away from downtown in America. I'm not saying Australians all want to live RIGHT downtown...but they want to be closer to it if possible, while still owning their own standalone home with yard etc. It's just easier living near things, rather than at the outskirts where services (transport, schools, shopping) tend to be less convenient.

I would also point out that assuming the dense, downtown areas are a "meat-market and drug cesspool" assumes something that simply isn't true. Cities aren't like that in Australia. The 'problem areas' in AU are almost always surburban, if they exist at all (see my second point re ensuring that people from different backgrounds and classes are 'mixed' in the way cities are designed).

Interestingly, property in more attractive areas is actually more profitable as apartments than offices in most cases in Australia. Common to buy up an under-used piece of downtown realestate and convert it into high-end apartments that sell for seven figures each...

Re:Citation Needed

[Cimexus]

Huh? Quite a few people I know live right in the Sydney CBD (World Square or similar complexes), or in very-nearby suburbs (Paddington etc.) Way out of my price range but not a bad place to live if you haven't got kids. A cousin of mine also lives in the Brissie CBD. I'm talking youngish, professional people here, generally single or married with no kids. Once you have a family, yeah you're right, it's out to the suburbs with you!

Sure it's not on the scale of NYC, but I don't think it's non-existent...

Re:Citation Needed

[Cimexus]

Very true. I'm the poster to which you're replying and I've actually been to Portland OR. It did feel very much like an Australian city in some ways (if you ignored the weather...)

Re:Citation Needed

[noh8rz10]

did you know they invented the burrito in SF Mission in the 60s? also its a nice place to be on a sunday. maybe it was sunny!

Re:Citation Needed

[phantomfive]

did you know they invented the burrito in SF Mission in the 60s? also its a nice place to be on a sunday. maybe it was sunny!

Yeah. I have an affinity towards El Salvador food, so I tried a pupusa place instead.

To me the Mission is like all the negatives of San Francisco (crazy people, smell of urine and pot) combined with all the negatives of of Latin America (dirty and dangerous). There are similar places, for example, in Redwood city by 5th street, or if you want to meet people from the Latino community 24 hour fitness is full of people to practice Spanish with. I'm mainly not sure what you consider vibrant about the Mission (lots of colors?).

On the other hand, if it gets replaced by HOAs all worried about their property value, then that would be repulsive, so you make a good point there.

Moronic.

[t0qer]

So instead of peacefully letting the tech workers board somewhat environmentally friendly busses that are subjected to stringent emissions regulations, they harass google and others to the point where they have to ride a boat with NO emissions regulations to and from work? Not to mention the fuel economy of boat vs wheels is horrible.

Re:Moronic.

[Darinbob]

There are normal public transport systems. Somewhere about a decade ago the general area shuttles vanished to be replaced by company specific shuttles. I don't know why Google thinks it is so special that it has to manage transportation for it's extreme remote workers who could just take the train instead. The whole point of public transportation is that the cost gets shared across a wide spectrum, which is being undermined in this case.

Two Sides

[TechNeilogy]

I wonder how the whales feel about this?

Re:Two Sides

[sconeu]

They're all for it. Google is actually *ENHANCING* their privacy, as they no longer have to worry about those pesky humans watching their every move.

Re:Two Sides

[Pope]

Well, until the WhaleView Cameras come out...

Transportation is evil

[Workaphobia]

> Inconveniencing [whale watchers] is apparently not considered evil.

I don't understand what anyone involved in this debacle wants google to do. Cease to exist? Develop transporter technology? In general, complaints about gentrification seem ridiculous. You can't complain about rich people outbidding you for your home any more than you can about immigrants stealing your jobs. What do you want, an act of congress to protect your economic niche? Hope you have a lobby.

Re:Transportation is evil

[pdbogen]

The protesters basically want Google employees to leave San Francisco and stop causing rents to go up. They are angry at Google for making it easier for the employees to live here. The better pay means landlords can charge higher rents, and the landlords are using a loophole (the Ellis act) to evict residents that have been there longer, which usually means (due to rent control) they're paying less.

It's not even an economic niche. It's an island that's being overtaken by rising tides, and the field mouse on the island are protesting the schools of fish that are taking up residence.

Re:Transportation is evil

[ShanghaiBill]

In general, complaints about gentrification seem ridiculous.

The complaints are especially ridiculous when they come from the same nimbys that lobby against the construction of any new housing in SF.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

gentrification

One of the many problems is they have rent control.

http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap18p1.html

Think of it this way. Lets say you have 100 houses in a desirable area. But say 50% are in 'rent control'. Those 50 are basically off the market. The people living in them have no incentive to move as long term their price of housing is going down due to inflation. This causes the remaining 50 houses to have a much higher burden of picking up demand. Thus raising the price on them. However, this does not preclude people from moving into those remaining 50 homes. But what you will get is people with more money. They will demand higher priced goods and services as they have the cash to buy it with. The original 50 however find they no longer can buy at their local grocer. As the guy running it quickly figured out he could raise prices and sell less items for higher prices as the market will bear it.

Rent control and 'gentrification' go hand in hand. The very people rent control is meant to help it hurts. Short term (usually 1-2 years) everything is good. Long term 10-15 years not so good. In this case a large employer has moved in and is doing what most cities would give their children's eye teeth away for. Bringing in good paying high education jobs. However, long term the employees will realize they are not wanted. They will move on. They may eventually just say 'lets move the *whole* company'. Considering the way google is structured? They could pull that off. I figure they will pick somewhere in nevada or austin tx.

You can not beat the market. You can not manipulate the market on the scale most gov's do and not cause side effects. Gentrification is a side effect of rent control. These people should be getting mad at the gov of San Fransisco and California.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Belial6]

Yes. They want Google to cease to exist. This is clearly an attempt at a smear campaign. Google having enough employees living close enough together and working close enough together that they can all take a loaded buss to and from work is an environmentalists wet dream. The only thing that would make environmentalists happier is if Google rented out all of the housing next to the employees homes so that the Google employees could just walk to work.

Re: Transportation is evil

[j-beda]

Isn't there room for more dormitory housing out in Google's suburb?

If employees want fashionable urban housing, try to fit into the existing city.

You mean like purchasing or renting housing on the open market? Isn't that what they are doing?

The problem is not that higher income earners can't find fashionable urban places to live - the problem is that the lower income earners are being displaced out of their fashionable urban housing, and are understandably unwilling to leave town to find cheaper housing. Google could build a bunch of dorms out in the boonies, but I doubt the people needing the housing (ie. those being displaced) want to move out there.

When people are moving into town, the only way to house everyone is to build more units, or force people to leave, or maybe encourage people to live with roommates?

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

It sounds to me like a failure of rent control, not a problem with Google. Either it was implemented poorly or it is a fundamentally flawed concept. You have a bunch of people who seem to feel entitled to lower-than-market living costs. Now, I agree that gentrification is a real social problem, and possibly some kind of rent control could help mitigate it - but this is a problem that the community needs to solve, not a company. While there might be some added incentive for people to live where they otherwise might not, the fact is that the main effect of the Google buses is probably of taking cars off of the road. SF was gentrifying before Google came along - it's a trend in many US cities right now. I'm glad we are talking about it, but I think Google is being singled out a bit unfairly.

Since we are talking about gentrification, I wonder if a system requiring rent-to-own contracts instead of leases would serve the same purpose? By that, I mean where every day you live in a house/apartment, you own a little more of it. When you move out, the landlord can buy you out or profit share with you. If the area gentrifies rapidly, your share of the property will be worth a lot more than you paid in and you'll gain from the neighborhood's resurgence. I'm sure there are all sorts of ill effects that I haven't considered, but I'm just throwing it out there. I'm sure some legal eagles could make it all done in tax law, if there are constitutional concerns. Seems these days that the constitution matters little if the legislation is done in the tax code.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit of a simplification. To a certain extent rent control is a method of providing the stability of owning a home to people who can't afford it by preventing a landlord from evicting you by rent increase - the same protection you get owning a house where you (generally) can't be forced to sell if you don't want to.

It is about creating stable neighborhoods, and only really causes trouble when a massive imbalance is created usually by the sudden inflow of big money - in this case tech employees earning several multiples of what the native residents earn.

To a certain extent Google is at fault in this - the imbalance would not be ocuring if Google didn't provide the shuttle service as without the shuttle service San Fran wouldn't be attractive/viable to the Google employees.

Re:Transportation is evil

[craighansen]

Rent control is already forcing landlords to share profits with the renter. The renter gets below-market rent.

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

Agreed. It's a horse of a different color - not all that radical. However, it would eliminate the landlord's incentive to kick you out.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Pope]

Any where I've lived with rent control, there is a provision to increase it by x% per year. So, no, the cost isn't going down at all.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Prop 13 has the same effect as rent control and makes the problem doubly worse.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Rent controlled rents rise with inflation, so your premise is flawed. They're only prohibited from rising faster - as in with the rate of housing prices (which has faaaaar outstripped the rate of rise in wages).

Re: Transportation is evil

[Belial6]

"Gentrification" is an attempt to make racist racism sound nice when they complain about "those kinds of people" moving into their neighborhood. It is only a "problem" if you are a racist.

Re: Transportation is evil

[khallow]

If employees want fashionable urban housing, try to fit into the existing city.

They are. The people who aren't fitting are the anti-gentrification people.

Re:Transportation is evil

[drinkypoo]

It sounds to me like a failure of rent control, not a problem with Google. Either it was implemented poorly or it is a fundamentally flawed concept.

Both are probably true. The truth is that capitalism demands that people who live in the city pay ten bucks for a coffee so that the coffeeshop worker who lives in the city can be paid well enough to survive, but it also demands that the cup of coffee cost five bucks.

we are talking about gentrification, I wonder if a system requiring rent-to-own contracts instead of leases would serve the same purpose?

That's a reasonable solution in a world with a COLA, but not without it, because you're depriving someone of their property and that's not acceptable when the system doesn't guarantee basic income.

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

That's a reasonable solution in a world with a COLA, but not without it, because you're depriving someone of their property and that's not acceptable when the system doesn't guarantee basic income.

Rent controls already deprive a person of the use of their property, so it's not really any different in concept.

That said, appearances matter to the courts and the public, so you work it all out so that it looks like a business tax. Something like x percent of the appraised value of the property is due every year, just like a rental property tax. Already common practice. Any balance not paid goes into a lien, which must be satisfied at sale and the proceeds redistributed as a "homestead credit" to the person who lived there when the tax was paid / due.

Yeah, it's effectively the same thing as simply handing parts of the deed over, but all done with tax code that had been implemented and passed all of the courts.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

But why is Google special here? Should we have shuttles for a thousand different companies? Or would it be better for these workers to use and support public transportation instead, and Google could pitch in some of the cost if it likes instead of creating it's own private clubhouse on wheels.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

Why does there need to be new housing in San Francisco? What's the rule that a house inside its borders is good but on the other side it's bad? There are other cities, there's no need to be parochial about it all. San Francisco is small and cramped and has zero room to grow, so naturally any new houses must be built somewhere else. That's why all the jobs are somewhere else too.

San Francisco seems to becoming a residential neighborhood, at least for the tech sector. People go there to live while working somewhere else in tech jobs, meanwhile there's a big influx of daytime workers going to finance sector jobs. It's sort of mixed up, people aren't living where they're working.

Re: Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

I find "fashionable urban places" to be an oxymoron. What's fashionable about having to step over homeless people when you walk out your front door, or having to clean vomit off your steps every weekend, or dealing with the overall crime. I am baffled why SF people stick up their noses at cleaner and safer locations.

Why don't need dormitories in the boonies (don't be stupid, Google is in Mountain View, it is most emphatically not the boonies, it is ground zero of the tech boom whereas SF is the boonies as far as tech goes). We have enough housing in silicon valley for Googles workers, most of the workers who are up in SF used to actually live in silicon valley but left in search of artisanal cupcakes and bacon martinis.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

Environmentalists would be even happier if those workers actually lived closer to Google, so that the shuttle only had to go a few miles. And there actually is housing nearby for all of them.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Belial6]

So, your are saying that environmentalists would rather people take a shuttle for a few miles than just walk to work? I guess that is the problem with environmentalists. They don't care about the environment.

Re:Transportation is evil

[ShanghaiBill]

Why does there need to be new housing in San Francisco?

Why not? There is clearly demand for more housing.

What's the rule that a house inside its borders is good but on the other side it's bad?

Go ask the protesters.

San Francisco is small and cramped and has zero room to grow

Poppycock. Manhattan has five times the population density of SF, and there is no shortage of people that consider Manhattan a nice place to live. There is plenty of room to grow. Look, we can either have more suburban sprawl, or we can allow more people to live in city centers. Compact cities are the natural market driven outcome, and are better for everyone except some vested interests using their power to block new housing.

It's sort of mixed up, people aren't living where they're working.

Indeed. That is what you get with market distorting central planning.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

They're not going to be able to put a new office within walking distance of every worker.

Re:Transportation is evil

[drinkypoo]

That's a reasonable solution in a world with a COLA, but not without it, because you're depriving someone of their property and that's not acceptable when the system doesn't guarantee basic income.

Rent controls already deprive a person of the use of their property, so it's not really any different in concept.

The use, but not the ownership. Everywhere I'm aware of in the US and certainly in California, the owner can kick you out at any time if either they or a family member is moving in. That "guarantees" a property owner the right to residence, though granted they still have to pay their property taxes.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Darinbob]

So what's wrong with South San Francisco? Oakland? Richmond? What is magical about the city border where one foot outside it is undesirable?

Re:Transportation is evil

[ShanghaiBill]

So what's wrong with South San Francisco? Oakland? Richmond? What is magical about the city border where one foot outside it is undesirable?

What business is it of yours? Clearly many people are willing to pay much more to live in SF. Just because you disagree with that, it doesn't give you the right to shove your values down their throats. People should be free to live where they want.

Re: Transportation is evil

[hawguy]

I find "fashionable urban places" to be an oxymoron. What's fashionable about having to step over homeless people when you walk out your front door, or having to clean vomit off your steps every weekend, or dealing with the overall crime. I am baffled why SF people stick up their noses at cleaner and safer locations.

Why don't need dormitories in the boonies (don't be stupid, Google is in Mountain View, it is most emphatically not the boonies, it is ground zero of the tech boom whereas SF is the boonies as far as tech goes). We have enough housing in silicon valley for Googles workers, most of the workers who are up in SF used to actually live in silicon valley but left in search of artisanal cupcakes and bacon martinis.

Didn't you just answer your question? If Mountain view had the artisanal cupcakes and bacon martinis or whatever else the Googlers left Mountain View for, then they would have never left.

City living isn't for everyone, but Mountain View living isn't either. Some people like living where there are over a dozen bars and restaurants, a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker within a 3 block radius of their house. A 20 minute ride on the train takes them to a new neighborhood with its own set of shops and restaurants to explore. Everything is within easy biking distance since the city is only 7 miles wide, and you really don't need to own a car to get around (especially with Zip Car and City Carshare available for when you *do* need a car).

I only know a few Google employees that live in SF and they work our of the SF office as much as possible, only making the trek to mountain view when absolutely neccessary.

Re:Transportation is evil

[hawguy]

So what's wrong with South San Francisco? Oakland? Richmond? What is magical about the city border where one foot outside it is undesirable?

When people say they want to live in San Francisco, few are thinking of living in the Outer Sunset, which is what South SF resembles, except SSF is almost entirely unwalkable low density neighborhoods with little access to transit. There is a tiny main street in SSF, but those used to the variety of restaurants and other entertainment in SF would quickly tire of it.

People want to live in Noe Valley, the Marina, SOMA, etc -- they have dozens of fancy (or not so fancy) and expensive bars and restaurants within blocks of their homes, and if they want something new, they can hop on a bus or train and be in an entirely different neighborhood in 20 minutes.

It's not so much that SF stops being magical when you step one foot outside the border, but that it becomes less and less magical the farther away you get from the desirable neighborhoods, and neighboring towns are way too far away from the areas where people want to live (and some, like Oakland and Richmond, are undesirable for other reasons). Those that love SF don't want to travel to SF to get the city experience, they want to live in the city experience. Driving in to SF every night for dinner quickly gets old.

That said, there are plenty of people that live outside SF and are perfectly happy where they live, but those that are happy living in Richmond, aren't really the same set of people that are clamoring to live inside SF.

Re:Transportation is evil

[hawguy]

Note that rent control in SF only applies to buildings built before June 1979, so none of the expensive new luxury apartments that have been built in the last 34 years are under rent control.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Belial6]

Of course they could. They aren't doing it, but it certainly is something they could accomplish. You know that.

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

Yes, it's the property taxes that already deprive a person of their property. Where I live, I have to pay about 3% of the value of my home every year for the honor of keeping it.

Re:Transportation is evil

[afgam28]

There's a lot of noise being made about the Ellis Act evictions, and how they've "skyrocketed" recently with a 170% increase in evictions. For some perspective, the raw number of Ellis Act evictions last year was 116, in a city with a population of 825,863. It sucks to be evicted, but this isn't a crisis on the scale that some are making it out to be.

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

Rent is determined by market forces, not the costs to the landlord. If anything, this will nail property values - probably not affect rents.

Re:Transportation is evil

[MightyYar]

Well, obviously my proposal would require changing the law.

Re:Transportation is evil

[Workaphobia]

> Should we have shuttles for a thousand different companies?

Is there a downside to that? If you don't like them using a public resource, charge them for access to it; I'm sure they're more than happy to pay if they aren't already. Not enough bus stops? Build more, seems like you'll make your money back. Or give them free access as a trade-off to lure in a better tax base. That's a decision for the city.

But if you're just mad that there exists a class of people who can afford fancier things (directly or through their employer), then yeah, I could see why one would want to force them to use icky icky public transportation like the plebes.

Re:Transportation is evil

[cthulhu11]

> Inconveniencing [whale watchers] is apparently not considered evil.

I don't understand what anyone involved in this debacle wants google to do. Cease to exist? Develop transporter technology?

Ohhhhhhh, here are some ideas: 1) Get off the "gotta gotta be sited in the same overpriced square mile as everyone else" bandwagon. I once worked for a tech company in friggin' DALLAS that did just fine wrt attracting talent. 2) Stop insisting that employees congregate into the same building, where they'll just sit in front of their computers and type to their co-workers. In most cases they could do that just as well from home, or even some satellite location. Google admittedly does this to an extent with their [relatively small] remote locations. Many of the others don't.

i dont get it

[ganjadude]

I really dont get it. While I understand google is not squeeky clean these days, why do people have to turn everything into an anti google issue? Google pays for busses to bring its employees to work? its bad!!!! Google tries something different with a ferry, OH NO now people cant watch the whales!!!! I mean come on already google could say they are going to give everyone in the state a brand new tesla, and someone would be bitching about how they wanted a ford

Re:i dont get it

[Todd Knarr]

It wasn't that Google hired the buses. It was that Google's buses were using the public-transit bus stops, interfering with the regular buses. That's an entirely reasonable objection, if Google wants to run buses then let them arrange all the infrastructure needed themselves or pay the transit system for using public bus stops.

Re:i dont get it

[pdbogen]

Sort of. The protesters latched on to that as a visible and easily protestable symbol of the real problem.

It's easy to get really, really angry at a super nice charter bus that's picking up the young and well-paid tech workers from your neighborhood (perhaps that you've lived in for a decade or more) that you're about to get kicked out of because you can no longer afford the rising rents.

Re:i dont get it

[ganjadude]

I dont know how it works in SF, but here where I live, a bus stop is open to any bus, public or private. We cant reasonably expect google to build its own bus stops, Now as for paying to use the existing stops I can see an argument for that route but my argument would be road taxes pay for that public use, therefore anyone can use it, even a private company

Re:i dont get it

[ShanghaiBill]

It was that Google's buses were using the public-transit bus stops, interfering with the regular buses. That's an entirely reasonable objection

No, that is not the objection. The protesters are primarily upset that Googlers are living in SF. It is legal for their buses to use the bus stops. Other private buses use them as well. There is minimal interference with the public buses.

if Google wants to run buses then let them arrange all the infrastructure needed themselves or pay the transit system for using public bus stops.

Everyone benefits from more buses and fewer cars on the roads. Allowing them to use the public bus stops is a good way to encourage desired behavior that benefits everyone, and it is legal for that reason. Requiring everyone with a bus to build their own redundant infrastructure would be idiotic.

Google is acting responsible here. The protesters are idiots.

Re:i dont get it

[mythosaz]

If Google had built their own bus stops, people would have been up in arms about them not peacefully coexisting with existing infrastructure.

It's all sour grapes.

I know SF runs on a tight schedule - it's always moving quickly to its next destination - but you can't have it both ways.

Reminds me of a little neighborhood here downtown. [Overall, downtown here is a hit-and-miss mixture of early century houses, new businesses, run down junk, industrial areas - quite a mix indeed.] Anyway, a corner full of abandoned buildings was renovated to bring in a lunch destination for downtown workers. Half a dozen new popular "fast fresh" restaurants moved into the corner to provide a lunch Mecca, and the corner across the street follow suit, making it quite a place for the thousands of people who work downtown to consider.

During lunch, Mon-Fri the only time of the day that there's anyone downtown, parking could get bad enough to force people into residential neighborhoods. The neighborhoods responded by getting brand new no-parking signs for 11am to 2pm because they want the businesses to fold up and go back to being check cashing and foreign dentistry. [Apparently.]

Re:i dont get it

[Anonymous Psychopath]

It wasn't that Google hired the buses. It was that Google's buses were using the public-transit bus stops, interfering with the regular buses. That's an entirely reasonable objection, if Google wants to run buses then let them arrange all the infrastructure needed themselves or pay the transit system for using public bus stops.

Google is now paying the city $100,000 annually for the use of the public bus stops.

Re:i dont get it

[aardvarkjoe]

It wasn't that Google hired the buses. It was that Google's buses were using the public-transit bus stops, interfering with the regular buses. That's an entirely reasonable objection, if Google wants to run buses then let them arrange all the infrastructure needed themselves or pay the transit system for using public bus stops.

If interfering with regular buses was actually the problem, then I don't see that having Google pay for the privilege of using the bus stops solves anything.

I can't find any evidence that that was really an issue, though. It sounds like this is more of a money thing -- complaints that Google employees are using infrastructure built for the public buses without having to pay for it. From that perspective, I agree that it is sensible to have Google pay to use them.

Re:i dont get it

[couchslug]

If you rent the neighborhood does not belong to you.

Having been variously tenant, homeowner, and landlord I can see their side, but renting is transient and if you don't own you should not be planning to stay anywhere for a very long time. If you do own you should have a plan to adapt to changing property values and do well. If those values and the place you live in can be expected to crater (as was correctly anticipated in Detroit a LONG time before that happened), don't stand on sentiment and have a plan to GFTO. The US is a large country and you don't have to stick in one place.

For example my parents bought a house in Bergen County, NJ for $60K in the 1960s. When taxes became prohibitive because of increasing property values, they cashed out and finished their retirement elsewhere with more money.

Re:i dont get it

[mjwalshe]

so Google just needs to do a month of having everyone that uses the buses drive - 1 person per car and see what that does to the traffic

Re:i dont get it

[Belial6]

Was it really interfering with regular buses? I highly doubt that. It is also not a reasonable objection. "Arrange all the infrastructure needed themselves" is a "if you want to make an apple pie, first you have to create a universe" type argument.

As for paying to use the stops. A) Did they? No one has indicated what arrangements Google made with the city. B) It would be highly irresponsible for the city of San Francisco to charge for the use of these stops. They are on the street where cars drive. The infrastructure consists of a sign saying "No Parking except buses". The buses Google is operating are being used for the very purpose that those sign were installed for. To reduce traffic congestion.

Google is doing the city and it's residents a favor by operating the buses. The problem is that some people don't want "Those kind of people" moving into their neighborhoods, and there are competing businesses that can use their prejudice to harm their competitors.

Re:i dont get it

[pauljlucas]

It is legal for their buses to use the bus stops.

No it's not. It's not legal for any vehicle other than a city bus to use a city bus stop. At least that's the way it's been up until very recently. Now, the bus operators will have to pay to use the stops.

Re:i dont get it

[drinkypoo]

I dont know how it works in SF, but here where I live, a bus stop is open to any bus, public or private.

The way it works in SF and in every other city I've lived in is that a bus stop is a "no stopping" zone for anything but a bus. Some cities let taxis use bus stops, some cities let anyone use bus stops but with no parking and no standing... Now, bus lanes tend to be open to any commercial bus, but that's another thing.

Re:i dont get it

[ganjadude]

well it is a "bus" not a public bus, but still a bus. Anywhere with sane laws would say that a bus is more than welcome to stop at a bus stop. It is not called a "state owned only" stop

Re:i dont get it

[wardred]

Actually, not really true. Rent control means long term renters can often afford the place they're in, but cannot afford to move anywhere else in the city as rents go up around them.

Re:i dont get it

[drinkypoo]

It is not called a "state owned only" stop

There's at least two bus lines in SF with sign markings. Mostly it's MUNI. A MUNI stop is a MUNI stop, not just a bus stop. Especially if you ask a MUNI employee.

Re:i dont get it

[aaarrrgggh]

San Francisco is extremely difficult to buy into. The Tenancy In Common (TIC) helped a lot of people buy, but the majority of the housing stock is 5-15 unit buildings. It is also a fairly transient population-- I would wager less than 50% of the people living there any given year will still be there in 5 years, and substantially higher counting people from 20-30. It is therefore a market which naturally creates renters.

The complaint with the busses is ultimately if you work for a company in the peninsula, live down there. Leave the city for the people that work there and make it their community; there is no value to SF as a "bedroom community." Quite frankly, the techies do very little to make San Francisco a better place. It isn't just their fault, but it is this broader gentrification that kills the artistic, music, food, politics, transit, and even vistas that make San Francisco what it is. Sure, things change with time, but giving the developers free reign to build high rises where ever market demands is a dangerous pattern.

Re:i dont get it

[ganjadude]

or to put it another way, what would happen if instead of "google employees" we replaced it "black people" would the response be the same?

Re:i dont get it

[aardvarkjoe]

Bus stops, however, aren't free. Especially when they involve building extra pullouts, which is pretty much required to maintain traffic flow in areas with high traffic.

It's true that there is a general benefit to the public to have people use mass transit (public or private), but exactly how much that benefit is, in comparison to maintaining the bus stops, isn't exactly easy to quantify.

Re:i dont get it

[Todd Knarr]

In part it's a space issue. There's only so much space for buses to stop at each stop. The transit system times buses so that (assuming they're running relatively on-time) there won't be more buses at a stop at any given time than the stop has space for. If other vehicles are using the stop without coordinating timing with the transit system, you can end up with a situation where city buses have to stop to drop off and pick up riders but there's no space for the bus.

Re:i dont get it

[Todd Knarr]

I tend to see it from the residential point-of-view. They need the parking for the people who live there. By pushing parking out into the residential areas the businesses (and the developers behind the business centers) are getting all the benefits of additional parking without having to shoulder any of the costs of providing it. My opinion's always been that if the developer wants to put in business space that'll require parking, let the developer build the required parking and pass the costs on to the businesses that'll lease the space and benefit from the parking.

Re:i dont get it

[Belial6]

Buses are just not that dense. It is obviously not about bus space. It is about not wanting "those kinds of people" living in the neighborhood.

Co-opted or hired?

[Todd Knarr]

It sounds like Google didnt' co-opt the boat, they just hired it. The company that owns it and hires it out decided to take Google's offer over that of the whale-watching company who apparently didn't have a long-term contract for it's use. That's frankly one of the risks you take when you make your company's operation dependent on someone else without locking it down with an iron-clad air-tight contract: that someone else may change their mind and you're left high and dry.

Re:Co-opted or hired?

[larry bagina]

Yep. Maybe the whale company will learn that lesson and ditch google mail, calendar, docs, android, etc.

Re:Co-opted or hired?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

It sounds like Google didnt' co-opt the boat, they just hired it. The company that owns it and hires it out decided to take Google's offer over that of the whale-watching company who apparently didn't have a long-term contract for it's use. That's frankly one of the risks you take when you make your company's operation dependent on someone else without locking it down with an iron-clad air-tight contract: that someone else may change their mind and you're left high and dry.

Plus there's not exactly a shortage of charter boats operating out of Long Beach. TFS is a troll.

Re:Co-opted or hired?

[GrumpySteen]

Shh... you're interrupting the "OMG GOOGLE IS EVIL" circlejerk.

Re:Co-opted or hired?

[TangoMargarine]

Learn a lesson?!? Where do you think you are? This is America! We don't learn lessons, we sue their pants off for our own mistakes!!

"co-opted" means something else

[Meostro]

I don't think "co-opted" means what you think it means. I'm pretty sure Google just paid the operator for their service.

I'm just waiting .

[Anonymous Coward]

One day, Google is just going to build a space station and all of their workers will be up there. Then other companies will follow suit.

Eventually, all that will be left on the hot drought stricken planet will be the unemployable dregs with no skills and no worthwhile education - you know, all those losers that companies say have no skills or inadequate education. And the folks who don't fit into the corporate culture *cough*too old*cough*.

Then in the meantime, when those losers complain about job prostpects, the elite will point fingers and say "Oh Gee! First World Problems!" and other BS - while they continually lobby for more of the folks from countries exporting their poverty.

And I'd like to point out that yes, I do have First World problems. See, my ancestors were smart enough to treat their women as equals and not less than cattle. They were smart enough to implelment a democratically elected governmental system and not fall for the liars who want to create an authortarian control government and economy. And they were smart enough to realize that a government needs to be secular in order to be just.

So, I got lucky - I had wise ancestors who learned from the stupidity of the rest of the World. And I am grateful.

I resent the billionaire class trying to hide their true intentions by calling smart, hard working, decent people inadequate in order to hide their exploitation of Third World labor - like the Indians, Chinese, and other countries who didn't have the benefit of enlighted leaders and ancestors.

Re:I'm just waiting .

[mythosaz]

One day, Google is just going to build a space station and all of their workers will be up there. Then other companies will follow suit.

Eventually, all that will be left on the hot drought stricken planet will be the unemployable dregs with no skills and no worthwhile education - you know, all those losers that companies say have no skills or inadequate education. And the folks who don't fit into the corporate culture *cough*too old*cough*.

I watched Elysium too!

Missed the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the anger is misplaced in the first place but this doesn't actually address what I see as the actual gripe.
The reason people are mad a Google buses is because it enables and encourages Google employees to live in SF without paying expensive transportation costs or suffering the inconveniences of public transportation, which makes a two tiered system of those who work for a deep pocket tech companies and those who don't.
It causes an increase in demand for housing which SF building laws do little to meet on the supply side substantially raising rents.
Work for Google, be a total brogrammer, live in hip Disneyland for adults, work in a tech-burbia perpetual college bubble, at the cost of displacing less affluent locals and the destruction of culture.

Re:Missed the point

[mbkennel]

"suffering the inconveniences of public transportation, which makes a two tiered system of those who work for a deep pocket tech companies and those who don't."

So if SF public transportation is inconvenient, then everybody should be inconvenienced?

What about this angle: Google's busses are clearing up traffic of 20 cars.

Re:"vandalism"

[jfengel]

I hadn't realized that the Vandals objected.

Re:Not Cool

[JeffOwl]

Don't be lazy, people. Use your own car, public bus, carpool with others, whatever.

What's the difference between what Google is doing and carpooling on a large scale?

Re:"vandalism"

[nitehawk214]

Against the middle ages Germanic tribe, perhaps?

Is Google the new M$?

[EMG at MU]

Seriously will ./ try to slant anything to make Google look bad? Co-Opt a boat? Did Google storm the boat by force and take it over like nerdy pirates? Or did Google negotiate a contract with a company to use one of their boats? If whale watching is in such crazy demand that Google using a boat for 30 days is ruining the season then it sounds like there is a great business opportunity for someone to start another whale watching tour company.

Why isn't anyone bitching about the owners of the boat letting Google use it? Becuase that wouldn't get ./'s pantys in a knot. Thats why.

Re:Is Google the new M$?

[EMG at MU]

Is /. really that influential of a place that someone would actually spend time and money trying to smear google with shitty submissions?

Environmental impact?

[HockeyPuck]

I would guess that moving 30-40 passengers via bus uses far less fuel than taking them by boat.

Way to go SF! Save your bus-stops...

We should expect pro-environment Berkley folks to be protesting the pro-bus-stop SF residents...

Re:"vandalism"

[suutar]

It's prejudicial against 5th century Germanic tribes. If anyone finds a Vandal to complain, I'll back them 100%.

Re:A Car?

[pdbogen]

Individual employees driving cars (or even carpooling) would be worse for the environment and worse for traffic. A lot of the folks probably don't own cars (it's hard to own a car in San Francisco); they'd be paying for parking, which would actually drive rents up further. Space is space, whether you're putting yourself in an apartment or a car in a parking space.

Public transportation doesn't go directly to where they need to be to work, and it doesn't go there as quickly as the Google shuttle would (what with making a lot of intermediate steps.) That said, the tech companies in the area generally *will* provide a stipend of some sort for employees that can efficiently commute via mass transit. (For Google, that usually means BART or CalTrain, not busses.)

One more reasoned argument seems to be that Google should have encouraged public transportation to provide the routes they need instead of doing it themselves. That, however, isn't how the free market works. I can easily imagine the outrage at "Google's manipulation of the city government to bend the mass transit system to their will," so I rather doubt it would actually mollify the protesters any.

Sold!

[Overzeetop]

Develop transporter technology?

Proposal accepted.

Re:Not Cool

[pdbogen]

If nothing else, the Google shuttle could be considered simply a form of non-monetary compensation to Google's employees. (In the same way that all their free food is actually taxed as income.)

That's the way an economy works. They might not be paying cash for it, but at the end of the day they're making less money because some of their compensation is in the form of a free bus ride down the Peninsula.

Its about the bus stops ...

[perpenso]

I think the issue is that Google is using city bus stops without permission. In other words appropriating a public asset for private use. And possibly impacting the performance of a city service, have city buses had to wait while the google shuttle cleared the stop?

If Google were picking up its employees somewhere else there would probably be no controversy.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Paco103]

Is there a law against using the bus stops? (I don't live there, I truly don't know.)

I get that we're saying they're for public buses, but how are they "specifically" for public buses any more than the roads are only for public transport? Just because no other buses have used it before? It seems to me a bus stop is simply a short term stopping point for drop offs and pick ups that happens to be large enough for buses and sometimes have benches or shelters for people. Private traffic impacts the performance of all kinds of city services. It can slow down fire trucks, ambulances (not always city services, where I live they are privately owned and operated). Some cities deal with these by putting in emergency lanes that actually do have laws that enforce nobody else using them, but unless that law exists for the bus stop I don't see a problem here. Either add more bus stops or enlarge existing ones due to usage patterns, or pass a law (if it's not already passed) stating that the stops are only for publicly operated city buses and then fine accordingly.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[j-beda]

I think the issue is that Google is using city bus stops without permission. In other words appropriating a public asset for private use. And possibly impacting the performance of a city service, have city buses had to wait while the google shuttle cleared the stop?

If Google were picking up its employees somewhere else there would probably be no controversy.

Google is not the only company doing this by the way. Additionally, this week SF announced a pilot project to license and charge companies for the use of specific bus stops on some sort of cost-recovery basis.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/07/us-google-commuterbus-sanfrancisco-idUSBREA0517L20140107

"City rules forbid the city from collecting more than the cost of providing the service, officials said."

God forbid the city make a profit on the use of their assets. It seems like they could use this to subsidize the public system a bit and have everyone benefit. Maybe that is too much like socialism or something...

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And so people protest? Ahahahahahahah, sorry, Jeebus take the wheel.

Google should charge to delay and time city-owned busses so as to even things out and prevent bunching.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

"City rules forbid the city from collecting more than the cost of providing the service, officials said."

If this is a problem, change the rule. It is just a rule, it is unlikely to be carved in stone anywhere.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I don't know about you but I haven't seen bus stops that have busses there 24/7; in fact there's usually at least 30-60 minutes between busses at any one stop. I figure it would be pretty easy to schedule their busses so that a Google bus would never be at a stop at the same time a public bus would otherwise be there.

Besides that, even if such a situation arose, what's to stop one bus from parking behind the other one while both of them loaded passengers? Oh no, some of the passengers might have to walk another 10 feet! Whatever shall they do?

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[j-beda]

"City rules forbid the city from collecting more than the cost of providing the service, officials said."

If this is a problem, change the rule. It is just a rule, it is unlikely to be carved in stone anywhere.

I would not be surprised if it was a rule enacted to follow some misguided legislation prohibiting municipal governments from "unfairly" competing with the private sector. While I can sometimes see how that would be something worth avoiding, I don't usually have a knee-jerk reaction against services being offered by governments in every possible case.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[asylumx]

Would it be better, from a legal perspective, if Google's bus just stopped on the side of the road similar to what taxis do?

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

When I think of a city bus stop, I visualize a metal sign post that says bus stop and maybe a bench on the sidewalk. It's not really that much of a public asset and pretty much means if you wait here long enough a city bus will come pick you up. When a city bus isn't there it is a regular sidewalk curb where other people can be picked up or dropped off (like any other sidewalk).

My understanding of the protests wasn't about the use of the bus stops but the increase of rent within the neighborhoods due to IT workers looking for places to live. Google changing the mode of transportation won't stop that.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Darinbob]

Yes this is illegal in almost every city in the world.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Darinbob]

"Looking for places to live" is wrong. There are many many places for Google workers to live vastly closer to Google work places. These are mostly younger workers wanting to live in SF because they hear it's cool, and they are indeed making the cost of living in SF get higher, when it was already one of the highest in the state.

But then part of gentrification problem is that San Franscisco wants to be a self contained enclave or island. It doesn't want to be just part of a region, it wants to be THE region. It's Manhattan but with more attitude. Which means that if it wants to keep all of its workers within the city borders (janitors, teachers, police, all the way up to stockbrokers) then it starts feeling the pinch when new residents show up wanting to treat the city like a residential suburb while they commute an hour to the actual economic center outside the city.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I would live in the suburbs though I see nothing wrong with the younger folks wanting to live in the city. People who move to the suburbs tend to be married and looking for somewhere to "nest". Single folks would like to live in an apartment in an area where they would bump into other friends who often work for a different employer.

Re:Its about the bus stops ...

[Whorhay]

It could be that my city is an outlier but I just looked it up in the municipal code and it is legal here. First the law states that anyone, whether or not they are a bus, may stop and load or unload passengers in an expeditous manner so long they do not impede the flow of other traffic or a bus. Secondly the law doesn't seem to differentiate between privately or publicly owned buses. I'm sure the law could be different in San Fransisco but I couldn't find anything relating to bus stops in their municipal code.

Re:"vandalism"

[Kongming]

Personally, I don't like Visigoths. Tomorrow, I'll put up a sign: "No spiders or Visigoths allowed." I'm sick and tired of these Visigoths.

SF gentry opposes gentrification

[Anonymous Coward]

At the end of the day what I take from this is that SF is populated with frightened, hate-filled malcontents. I just hope this serves to dispel the rose-colored view of these people that so many indulge. They are not fair, friendly, open armed flower children that wish you and yours peace and freedom; they hate you and if you have the temerity to intrude on their precisely cultivated little world they won't hesitate to publically ostracize you, or worse.

One wonders if, at this point, someone in Google isn't thinking a suite in Colorado or Utah might have been a better option. I'm certain thats occurred to the employees that have to run the SF protest gauntlet every day.

Re:"vandalism"

[ganjadude]

Is there anything out that that is not racist to a subgroup of people these days? I mean seriously I would turn it into a drinking game but I would be dead within 15 minutes of watching the news these days

Re:"vandalism"

[mythosaz]

They did not. THE Vandals objected.

In other news about G+

[AtomicJake]

From this summary: "...some expressed concerns on Facebook..."
From another summary today: "Google today announced new integration between Gmail and Google+..."

Oh this irony!

Re:In other news about G+

[TangoMargarine]

Google is suing itself? That seems...counterproductive...

Not an Aquarium Boat

[tsqr]

The boat doesn't belong to the Aquarium of the Pacific; it belongs to a private harbor cruise company. If the cruise company would rather charter the boat to Google than run whale-watching tours, why shouldn't they do so?

As to the buses -- it seems that the excuse a lot of opponents use is that Google and other companies use the city's bus stops without paying for the privilege, either through fees or through fines. But the mayor of San Francisco doesn't seem to have any issues with this. Muni is actually working on developing a policy to more efficiently share the stops with the private shuttles, and it's not going to get a dime for doing it.

Google transportation

[Animats]

I'm surprised Google is bothering with a boat. The boat only takes people as far as Redwood City. They've only doing a little more than half the trip by boat. They'll have to take buses at both ends. It doesn't seem worth the trouble to change vehicles twice.

Re:Google transportation

[bob_super]

Compare to "get harassed and don't make it to work" or "sit in traffic 90 minutes on your own dime"
Many probably don't need a Google bus to go to the boat. Lots of parts of SF are within reach.

Re:Google transportation

[Animats]

Right. Especially since the whole point of the Google buses is that they have WiFi, so people can work while on the bus. Google gets another hour a day out of their employees by busing them.

Re:Not Cool

[mythosaz]

People aren't upset at the car/van/bus-pooling per se.

They're upset about the gentrification of neighborhoods, as tech millionaires "ruin" old neighborhoods by living in them.

As an example, look how "awful" Brooklyn is now. Damned hipsters and their mayonnaise store.

Personal story about ferries

[Anonymous Coward]

I rode on a ferry once. I was heading to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. 'Give me five bees for a quarter', you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah...the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war; the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

Re:Personal story about ferries

[j-beda]

I rode on a ferry once. I was heading to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. 'Give me five bees for a quarter', you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah...the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war; the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

Exactly!

Re:"vandalism"

[tsqr]

What? How is "vandalism" a racist word? Some vandalism is racist (as in when a synagogue is defaced with swastikas), but I've never before seen someone claim that the word is somehow racist. Are you concerned with offending the descendants of a Germanic tribe that overran parts of Europe in the 5th century?

Move to Austin?

[glennrrr]

If I were Google, I'd be encouraging people to relocate to Austin, a fine city which is the Live Music Capital of the World, and not particularly encumbered by artificial housing constraints. They can even go whale watching on Lake Travis, although they probably won't see any.

Or they could ramp up their facility near here in Cambridge and rent the duck boats to take engineers over to Boston.

Re:Move to Austin?

[McKing]

Have you been to Austin lately? It's a lot different now that it was just 10 years ago. The only housing available is farther and farther away from the city center, and North, Central, and South Austin are like 3 different cities now. IH 35 is a parking lot most days, and it takes just as long to get over to the alternate routes like Mopac as it does to just gut it out and wait through the I35 traffic. Building a major city along a single stretch of highway with no real plans for expansion other than north and south was not a great idea.

It's in beta.

[wcrowe]

...after Google's '30-day trial'...

Good grief. Even their boat chartering is in beta.

Re:It's in beta.

[bob_super]

try to get a boat form Long Beach to SF for a two-day experiment, and see how much you save.

preserves peace of whales and citizens

[Zecheus]

A double do-good. Yea Google.

Telecommuting?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google's people are so friggin' smart why are they wasting all this money on buses and ferries? Keep all the employees at home, make them telecommute, and use Hangout for meetings. How hard is that???

Re:Telecommuting?

[phantomfive]

If Google's people are so friggin' smart why are they wasting all this money on buses and ferries? Keep all the employees at home, make them telecommute, and use Hangout for meetings. How hard is that???

Because there are advantages to actually being at work with your coworkers.

Or, an alternative hypothesis, maybe Google isn't so friggin' smart? Nah....

Re:30 to 40?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Time to put together that U-boat Kickstarter project.

Shouldn't that be a G-boat?

Re:"vandalism"

[mjwalshe]

calling nerds "tech bros" could be considered abusive - calling one subgroup by the name of the very group that bullied them at school its a bit like calling Obama a redneck or cracker.

Re:A Car?

[couchslug]

"What is so bad about the employees driving themselves to work, or use public transportation, or have Google buy bus tickets for employees to commute by bus?"

Cars add to traffic and cause congestion at Google parking lots and add the extra labor of self-driving to the obligations of Google employees.

Public trans is less efficient because it isn't strictly targeted to serve Google employees.

There is no reason for Google not to take care of their employees rather than burden public transport, burden the employees, and burden Google thereby.

That presentation.

[Thavilden]

Is anyone else as bothered as me by the fact that the "Hello my name is" sticker on slide two of the presentation is such a low quality image? Oh god, slide three the bullets don't line up with the items, and then there's overlapping text on slide four. From there's it's pretty smooth sailing, but I would have tuned out real quick in that meeting.

Protesting is Ineffective

[Tenebrousedge]

Even if you do "own" the property, that does not constitute an unlimited right to do with it as you wish. It is not hereditary property, nor is it held by sovereign right. Your interest in the property is defined wholly by financial terms -- cash on the barrel-head. If someone else wants to spend more money to acquire that same property, so be it.

I don't wish to entirely repeat myself, but I found a metaphor that I feel particularly apt: this influx of wealth is like a rising tide. One may protest this (as demonstrated by Canute), but the flow of dollars, as with the tide, will not be swayed by argument, vandalism, nor rioting. To my mind, a far more productive use of time would be to recall that 'a rising tide lifts all boats', and apply oneself to learning programming. I did. Programming (albeit in its meanest form) is being taught to schoolchildren. Failing that, find a good excuse to separate these techies from their money -- real estate can't be their only interest. Failing that, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche": this is how markets work. I would be receptive to the idea that markets are not an appropriate solution for allocating housing, but no one seems to be making that argument, and frankly it's going to be a hard sell to the rest of the world.

Re: Protesting is Ineffective

[Mabhatter]

And when the tide goes out, you have Detroit and Flint... Which used to be cornerstones of "middle class" America.

Last one out, please loot the museums and public spaces of anything historical not cemented down!

Re:i can understand the anti-google trend

[ganjadude]

such hate from the supposedly friendly bay area...

Offer still stands

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Dear Google,

It appears that you are spending too much money trying to satisfy some ungrateful residents that don't like your employees spending their money within their community. Maybe you should consider moving to our state and neighborhood where the taxes are cheaper, the air is cleaner, the cost of living is lower, and the people appreciate employers that bring jobs to the local economy.

Sincerely,
The other 49 states.

Cost-benefit analysis

[nobuddy]

It boils down to what you gain vs what you lose.

Would you rather make $100,000 and have to pay $2000 a month in rent
or
Make $50,000 and pay $1000 a month in rent?

What you gain vs what you pay is where your decision lies. Cost of living is high, but compensation for the work tends to be disproportionately higher. Take home $38k or take home $76k after paying your rent....

Re: Cost-benefit analysis

[Mabhatter]

But you have to look at total hours devoted to "working" versus compensation. First, its more like $75k and $3k per month rent for most of Google's jobs... AND they want you there 10-12 hours a day versus 8. And you have to spend 2 hours each way commuting versus 30 minutes...

Basically most of those people are "wage salves" of the severest kind... With their $3k mortgage being "interest only". They "make" fantastic sums compared to flyover states, but in reality they own nothing.

Greenpeace

[ponraul]

Maybe Greenpeace can pick up the slack and blockade them.

Re:"vandalism"

[Kaenneth]

So some people are OK to be racist against, but not others, depending on their race?

Racist language being treated as acceptable hurts everyone.

Entitlement mentality, business edition.

[sethstorm]

By your logic, Google can do no wrong and that the protesters can do no right? You're part of the problem by suggesting that a company should be entitled to wage economic warfare if they're not served hand & foot.

Re:Entitlement mentality, business edition.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

My argument is simply that if the protesters don't want google employees living there then there are states full of people willing to have Google employees live with them. If the protestors want to turn San Francisco into another Detroit so that they can afford to live in an area for less than it is worth then I'm just offering Google a method to make that happen.

Is "co-opted" the right word? Probably not.

[eric_harris_76]

Is "co-opted" the right word? Probably not.

The right word is probably "rented".