[brudgers]

Let's get terms straight. Google is providing private mass transport. It's no more public transport than a charter liquor and gambling bus to Atlantic City. If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs - ok that's probably inaccurate since poor riders would have their transport subsidized rather than Google's subsidy to those more affluent.

Google's buses are solving more traffic problems in MountainView than San Francisco and relieving the congestion that most impacts commuters from San Francisco to their campus. If the service had to meet the requirements for public transportation i.e. meeting public needs, Google would shut it down.

[macspoofing]

>If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs

...and be subsidized by tax-payers (because public transit systems in big cities don't break-even on fares - and forget about capital projects, those always need government funds). So this is still a net-win for the city. Googlers subsidize a system they don't use to get to work.

[brudgers]

A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that infrastructure. Furthermore a plausible case has been made that Google's use of San Francisco's public infrastructure is having a negative impact on some of San Francisco's citizens. The impacted citizens are paying for the public infrastructure in their city.

In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce. Google's buses are the means by which that subsidy occurs.

There is nothing preventing Google from routes that pickup and deliver exclusively upon private property. Nor is there anything preventing Google from opening access to its bus service to the public.

There is not even anything to prevent them from operating their bus service at a profit...except the impossibility of doing so.

[macspoofing]

Are you for real?

>A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that infrastructure.

You mean roads? Public roads, built to serve San Francisco citizens? Those roads?

And that theft that the despicable Mountain View company is committing involves providing a service for San Fran employees who would otherwise drive into work and congest the roads and pollute the air, or worse, not live in San Fran? It seems like the implication is that it's better that these engineering yuppies not live in San Fran. That's the subtext here.

>In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce.

I really don't understand your mental gymnastics. How, under any reasonable interpretation, is it a negative for an upper-middle class young engineer-types, to choose to live in San Fran - pay San Fran property taxes, support local business by living and spending money in the area, as opposed to not. Your interpretation is insanity. Furthermore, you've got it all backwards as I've said. Those commuting San Fran engineers are paying municipal taxes. They are contributing to that city. They aren't contributing to Mountain View. They are a drag on that city. Every San Fran engineer is a drag on Mountain View, if anything. But that's why cities exist. To provide services like that because you're all part of the same fuckin country and the same fuckin state and the same fuckin region, and you're treating it like some sort of fuckin theft is happening from those foreigners 40 minutes away. Insanity.

San Franciscans really doesn't know how good they've got it.

//

I know there's an ideological reason why you're focusing on big evil Google. But it's actually San Francisco citizens that want to live in San Fran, and work at Google. Google doesn't care where they live. They would probably prefer their employees to live in Mountain View. It's San Francisco citizens that are choosing this.

[alangpierce]

It isn't necessarily the case that Google would shut down their bus service if it had to meet the requirements of public transportation. It looks like Google already funds a free shuttle from the Mountain View Caltrain station to Google HQ and the surrounding area, which actually is public transit.

http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/Shuttles/Shoreline_Shuttle... (See the fine print at the bottom for details.)

It's potentially possible that a similar approach could be done for the SF to Mountain View commute, where Google subsidizes the creation of specific public bus lines in exchange for Google employees riding for free, or something like that. That would probably make the community happier about the bus issue, although it wouldn't fix the rent/displacement issue at all.

[wybo]

If you take the terms technically, it is private mass-transit. However, considering its function, it does cut directly into the market for public transport (that already is difficult in many US cities due to lower density and more car-use). The terms don't matter that much (except for politically perhaps).

As for solving traffic problems, they don't necessarily do this more so than public transport would, if Googlers took that.

I think the issue is more that MUNI might have to think about introducing first-class busses, or first-class sections, or something like that. Because many people don't like sharing a bus bench with smelly (homeless) people.