top
San Francisco
San Francisco
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

S.F. to charge operators of tech commuter buses for using public bus stops

by sfchron
Protests work! Even though the issues are far from settled, the bus blockades have forced progress.
Anti-Gentrification Bus Blockades Spread to Both Sides of the Bay
Google Buses Blocked in Oakland, Apple Bus Blocked in SF to Protest Rising Costs of Living
Mon Dec 30 2013 (Updated 01/04/14)
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/30/18748564.php


S.F. to charge operators of tech commuter buses
John Coté
Updated 10:31 pm, Monday, January 6, 2014

Employee shuttle buses for Silicon Valley technology and Peninsula biotech firms, which have become a symbol of income disparity in San Francisco, will soon be charged for using public bus stops, city officials said Monday.

The agreement among the city, shuttle operators and the companies that use them had been in the works for months, but the issue took on added urgency in recent weeks as tenant advocates and other protesters blocked Google buses in San Francisco and Oakland. In San Francisco's Mission District last month, protesters blocked a bus carrying tech workers for about half an hour. Days later, demonstrators carrying a banner that read "F- off Google" broke a window of a bus at the West Oakland BART Station.

full article:
by SmashTheChron
As it says in the Chron article, they're only being charged a measly $1 per bus stop, per day. So if each bus makes 4 different pick-up stops and 4 drop-off stops per work day, and there are 250 work days in the year, then that's a mere $2,000 per year for transporting dozens of workers -- at most, a mere $150 per worker, per year. Instead, they ought to be paying at least 100 times as much (at least $15,000 per worker, per year), to compensate for the cost of building more housing -- rather than causing everyone else's rents to be jacked up. Yes, $1 per bus stop, per day, is better than nothing, but it only covers about 1 percent of the costs. So once again, we the public are getting ripped off, in order for big corporations to reap the benefits.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network