[sprizzle]

$1 per stop is chump change for a company like Google. I don't see how this fee will create any difference for what the protestors are demanding.

And this type of fee reminds me of a Freakonomics article that talked about how a daycare started charging parents a late fee of $3 and it had an unintended effect of increasing the frequency of late parents, because it rid the parents of moral guilt for being late. In a similar way, despite the fee, the big tech companies are going to continue doing what they're doing, but now they won't feel as bad for it. I don't see how this solves anything.

Freakonomics article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/0515-1st-le...

[yetanotherphd]

The purpose is to deal with the issues arising from the physical presence of the buses, and $1 a stop might be enough for that.

The purpose is not to discourage the buses. If a person wishes to live in San Francisco, and work at Google, that is their right (assuming they can pay the rent). No one has any moral basis for trying to stop them from exercising that right, any more than I have a right to stop people from paying high prices for caviar so, that I can afford it.

[pyoung]

This is just for the pilot program. State law forbids the city from collecting more money than the estimated costs of the program.

[greglindahl]

On the East Coast, it is not unusual to have private bus systems that share street stops and bus terminals with public buses. More public transit is a public good, and it's smart to keep fees low to keep people out of cars.