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Apple, Google Shuttles to Pay to Use Public Bus Stops in San Francisco

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,506
30,781



appleshuttlecastro.jpg
Major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook often use private buses to ferry employees from living areas in San Francisco and the bay area to company campuses in places like Cupertino, Mountain View, and Menlo Park.

Previously, the city was not receiving any income from the campus buses, even though they often used city bus stops. Today that changed as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) approved a pilot proposal (via The Verge) that will require commuter shuttle buses from companies like Apple to pay $1 for each stop they make every day.

Commuter shuttle buses have been subject to several protests over the course of the last few months, with activists in the area attacking employee buses in protest of rising housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
While the Silicon Valley companies will now be giving back to the city more than they have in the past, a formalized shuttle system won't answer the concerns that the tech industry is causing class warfare in San Francisco. Housing prices in the city are skyrocketing out of the reach of ordinary citizens, and many are blaming the high-income individuals employed by companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google.
Click to expand...
Set to begin in July of 2014, the program is expected to earn the city approximately $1.5 million over the course of 18 months, which will be used to cover enforcement of the program and evaluations on its efficiency. The $1 per stop fee is unlikely to have any significant impact on Apple or its employees, but it could help to ease tensions within the city.

(Image courtesy of The Castro Biscuit)

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple, Google Shuttles to Pay to Use Public Bus Stops in San Francisco
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/21/apple-shuttle-fees/
P

paul4339

macrumors 65816
Sep 14, 2009
1,448
732
wouldn't having more private commuter buses would be helping the city?

should companies be that much responsible for where their well paid employees decide to live? Or should the cost of maintaining the city be more of a responsibility of the people that decided to live there?

.
 
F

futbalguy

macrumors 6502
May 16, 2007
285
63
paul4339 said:
wouldn't having more private commuter buses would be helping the city?

should companies be that much responsible for where their well paid employees decide to live? Or should the cost of maintaining the city be more of a responsibility of the people that decided to live there?

.
Click to expand...


It seems like multiple issues were discussed in the article.

The city is taxing the buses just because they want the money and they can claim the buses are using their bus stops. I don't think its a matter of this costing the city in any real terms. They didnt say it was slowing down the rest of the public transit and Im sure it does actually alleviate some public transit costs.

The other issue is the current San Fran residents are pissed because the buses make it easier for to the wealthier tech guys to live downtown and commute longer distances to work. The residents would rather not have the private buses so the commute was harder and the tech guys have more incentive to leave the city and live closer to the office.
 
theBB

theBB

macrumors 68020
Jan 3, 2006
2,453
3
Talk about class warfare...

If the companies did not provide the shuttle service, there would be more cars on the streets making traffic and pollution worse for everyone. Now the companies will be asked to pay for the "privilege" of providing a service that the transportation authorities are failing to do effectively. SF and Berkeley has the most bone headed city administrations in some respects.
 
Chupa Chupa

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
mdriftmeyer said:
What a crock.

Public Transit and right-of-ways supported by the public shouldn't be double dipped for free by Corporations.
Click to expand...

Except the companies here aren't making $ off the bus stop; it's just a convenient, logical, and safe place to pick up employees; employees who are SF citizens & pay property taxes (either as homeowners or indirectly as renters) which covers things like maintenance for that right-of-way sidewalk/bus stop (mass transit doesn't make a profit to cover all its expenses).

Also, in an era where gov't is trying to encourage ride sharing & mass transit why discourage companies from shuttling employees to work en mass vs the company subsiding parking or other commuter costs? That just creates more pollution and wear and tear on the roads.

Now if it was XYZ shuttle service offering service from SF to wherever for $ I'd agree. That's a for-profit service & that would be piggybacking. But these employee shuttles are not that.

BTW "corporations" is not a dirty word. It's just a word.
 
kas23

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
Exactly why does it cost money to use a bus stop? I don't get it. And isn't it a public bus stop, where people in the public wait for a bus. That doesn't cost money either. You pay to ride the bus, not wait for it. I guess this is what happens when poor people complain, who, ironically, likely don't pay enough taxes to run these buses.

----------
mdriftmeyer said:
What a crock.

Public Transit and right-of-ways supported by the public shouldn't be double dipped for free by Corporations.
Click to expand...

In pretty sure the denizens who wait for these buses do pay taxes. They're not using it for free. Not to mention the tax base these corporations serve.
 
D

davidg4781

macrumors 68030
Oct 28, 2006
2,799
400
Alice, TX
Aren't the busses already paying a tax to use the roadways? All their fees should be included in this. I hope some of these companies find a way around this fee.
 
K

Kenrik

macrumors 6502
Dec 21, 2004
332
49
And they are using a ferry that brings the Googlers to the port of Redwood City (outside my office) so they don't "abuse" the public built streets. It's funny to see them exit the ferry and get on their buses.

I see it as Google giving the whiners the middle finger.
 
M

mrnoglue

macrumors member
Jul 14, 2011
55
9
Wow, not a lot of popular support for the new bus tax on this forum. There are quite a few arguments for this tax:

(1) Cost Shifiting - The increased traffic of these bus stops due to private use was not foreseen during the design phase, and therefore the planned lifespan must be discounted accordingly. Increased maintenance costs and improvements due to this unforeseen use will now be borne by the private users.

(2) Ability to pay - Public transportation is a social good, and this puts the burden on those best able to pay.

(3) Punitive damages - This is a penalty enforced against the well-to-do by the envious.

All are sound theories
 
larrylaffer

larrylaffer

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2009
693
1,304
Los Angeles
Chupa Chupa said:
Except the companies here aren't making $ off the bus stop; it's just a convenient, logical, and safe place to pick up employees; employees who are SF citizens & pay property taxes (either as homeowners or indirectly as renters) which covers things like maintenance for that right-of-way sidewalk/bus stop (mass transit doesn't make a profit to cover all its expenses).

Also, in an era where gov't is trying to encourage ride sharing & mass transit why discourage companies from shuttling employees to work en mass vs the company subsiding parking or other commuter costs? That just creates more pollution and wear and tear on the roads.

Now if it was XYZ shuttle service offering service from SF to wherever for $ I'd agree. That's a for-profit service & that would be piggybacking. But these employee shuttles are not that.

BTW "corporations" is not a dirty word. It's just a word.
Click to expand...

You realize of course that by allowing their employees to live in SF, 60 miles from their campus, they've just grown their potential talent pool by leaps and bounds. Ergo, they do make money from this service.

And to think otherwise is mildly insane, because they aren't going to provide such a service "just cuz". There's always something in it for them.
 
ArtOfWarfare

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,559
6,059
mrnoglue said:
(2) Ability to pay - Public transportation is a social good, and this puts the burden on those best able to pay.
Click to expand...

Also known as "From each what he is able".

Anyways, I see no problem with charging for the buses. Most cities require you to pay to park. In exchange, tax rates can be lower. Similarly, tax rates go down in exchange for charging the busses to use the stops.

That's the theory, anyways. In reality, taxes never go down, but perhaps they'll maintain a constant level for a bit longer than they would otherwise.

If everybody rode buses, I don't think rush hours would exist anymore. For every 50 cars you see in rush hour, they could all be replaced with a single bus. You'd end up with 1/50 the volume on the road (a bus isn't much different from a car in looking at how much space they take up, on account of how much space each needs in front of them relative to their sizes.) I ride the bus 120 miles everyday to/from work (and the subway about 5 miles. My commute takes about 75 minutes, each way.)
 
eastercat

eastercat

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,323
7
PDX
It means less of a chance for a fare increase or a lower fare increase. For the lower income riders, that's a big deal.
This is one of the few instances where trickle down actually works. :rolleyes:
Abazigal said:
The money won't trickle down to the average citizen anyways.
Click to expand...
 
jm001

jm001

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2011
596
123
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook often use private buses to ferry employees from living areas in San Francisco and the bay area to company campuses in places like Cupertino, Mountain View, and Menlo Park.

Previously, the city was not receiving any income from the campus buses, even though they often used city bus stops. Today that changed as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) approved a pilot proposal (via The Verge) that will require commuter shuttle buses from companies like Apple to pay $1 for each stop they make every day.

Commuter shuttle buses have been subject to several protests over the course of the last few months, with activists in the area attacking employee buses in protest of rising housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area.Set to begin in July of 2014, the program is expected to earn the city approximately $1.5 million over the course of 18 months, which will be used to cover enforcement of the program and evaluations on its efficiency. The $1 per stop fee is unlikely to have any significant impact on Apple or its employees, but it could help to ease tensions within the city.

(Image courtesy of The Castro Biscuit)

Article Link: Apple, Google Shuttles to Pay to Use Public Bus Stops in San Francisco
Click to expand...

Why the hell are the tech employees being blamed for rising costs of housing? It's a capitalist system we live in last I checked and it's the realty market that sets the market price not the tech employees. Hell the sellers which included the ordinary citizen are partly to blame for asking more for their property. But as I said we live in a capitalist society and that's how it runs. You can't afford to buy? Rent. Live on the outskirts where it is relatively cheaper and just commute.
 
mrsir2009

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
mdriftmeyer said:
What a crock.

Public Transit and right-of-ways supported by the public shouldn't be double dipped for free by Corporations.
Click to expand...

So instead corporations should be discouraged from providing a free shuttle service to their employees that gets air-polluting cars that congest traffic off the roads? Apple and the other companies that are doing this are doing the city a favor by giving employees FREE public transport -- charging companies for this is like charging people for picking up trash by the side of the road...
 
iLondoner

iLondoner

macrumors 6502
Nov 27, 2012
366
324
London (the big one, not London Ohio, Texas, Kentu
mrnoglue said:
Wow, not a lot of popular support for the new bus tax on this forum. There are quite a few arguments for this tax:

(1) Cost Shifiting - The increased traffic of these bus stops due to private use was not foreseen during the design phase, and therefore the planned lifespan must be discounted accordingly. Increased maintenance costs and improvements due to this unforeseen use will now be borne by the private users.

(2) Ability to pay - Public transportation is a social good, and this puts the burden on those best able to pay.

(3) Punitive damages - This is a penalty enforced against the well-to-do by the envious.

All are sound theories
Click to expand...

As you say, all sound theories, but what the article actually states is, "the program is expected to earn the city approximately $1.5 million over the course of 18 months, which will be used to cover enforcement of the program and evaluations on its efficiency," i.e. none of what you've written.
 
mw360

mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
kas23 said:
Exactly why does it cost money to use a bus stop? I don't get it. And isn't it a public bus stop, where people in the public wait for a bus. That doesn't cost money either. You pay to ride the bus, not wait for it. I guess this is what happens when poor people complain, who, ironically, likely don't pay enough taxes to run these buses.

----------



In pretty sure the denizens who wait for these buses do pay taxes. They're not using it for free. Not to mention the tax base these corporations serve.
Click to expand...

Paying taxes towards something doesn't mean you can appropriate it for your own means. You have to share it, fairly. Some people believe that running your own segregated service off those facilities is not fair sharing.
 
Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,132
31,174
mdriftmeyer said:
What a crock.

Public Transit and right-of-ways supported by the public shouldn't be double dipped for free by Corporations.
Click to expand...

Only thing that's a crock is this statement. I thought NeXT employees were smarter than this. :p
 
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