As someone in an entirely different country (and lives in a state where they've decided a 30% increase in public transport prices every year is acceptable and not idiotic...) can someone explain to me why there is such a fuss around companies making their employees lives easier by taking care of transport for them?
It is a rather complicated situation that involves a number of factors:
If Google was an SF company (or had a large SF campus that these employees could work at), the city would at least be collecting taxes from them that could be used to support all the public infrastructure that these employees and these buses use.
On top of that, it is horribly inefficient to have people commute 40 miles (~64 km) to their office. There is certainly some animosity towards these kinds of commuters who often spend very little time actually in San Francisco, pay little to no city taxes, but want to live here.
But when it comes right down to it, Google pays people extremely high wages that are a bit out of whack with what local companies pay which drives up rent in San Francisco. The thought goes that if the Google buses end, at least some portion of the employees would find it too big of a hassle to commute and actually move near where their office is.
You hear arguments about gentrification, but there are plenty of fully gentrified neighborhoods in San Francisco with people who would be happy to see these commuters go away. This is about rent prices, housing shortages and a general feeling that these commuters have no skin in the game.
Of course, really we need more housing stock too, but that's a more difficult problem.
On top of that, it is horribly inefficient to have people commute 40 miles (~64 km) to their office. There is certainly some animosity towards these kinds of commuters who often spend very little time actually in San Francisco, pay little to no city taxes, but want to live here.
This is arguable. Those people probably live in SF because they want to spend their evenings and weekends in the city, therefore spending all their money there (including on basic living expenses, like groceries). Most people don't really spend any money during work hours (except maybe for lunch, but that's a moot point when talking about Google/Apple/Facebook).
Also, the two city taxes I can think of are property taxes (which are rolled into rents anyway) and sales taxes (which are paid whenever they buy something inside the city). I don't see how commuters don't pay city taxes.
Those people probably live in SF because they want to spend their evenings and weekends in the city
I really think this is the big draw. I've heard Googlers complain about how crowded the SF office is on Fridays because of their peers from Mountain View finding excuses to work from their office so they can hit the town in the evening. Even people who live in the valley don't stay there for fun.
See I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and commute ~70km to Brisbane for work. So do tens of thousands here, so I find it really fascinating to see similar situations with vastly different consequences due to culture and other variables.
See I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and commute ~70km to Brisbane for work. So do tens of thousands here, so I find it really fascinating to see similar situations with vastly different consequences due to culture and other variables.
One of the things to note is that there is an incredible amount of traffic congestion during commute times on the freeway from SF to Mountain View and within San Francisco itself. We could double the capacity of our freeway system and they'd still be slow. So it can take well over an hour on the freeway each way plus an extra 20+ minutes just driving through SF to drop people off if they are any more than a couple miles from the nearest freeway exit.
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As someone in an entirely different country (and lives in a state where they've decided a 30% increase in public transport prices every year is acceptable and not idiotic...) can someone explain to me why there is such a fuss around companies making their employees lives easier by taking care of transport for them?
It is a rather complicated situation that involves a number of factors:
If Google was an SF company (or had a large SF campus that these employees could work at), the city would at least be collecting taxes from them that could be used to support all the public infrastructure that these employees and these buses use.
On top of that, it is horribly inefficient to have people commute 40 miles (~64 km) to their office. There is certainly some animosity towards these kinds of commuters who often spend very little time actually in San Francisco, pay little to no city taxes, but want to live here.
But when it comes right down to it, Google pays people extremely high wages that are a bit out of whack with what local companies pay which drives up rent in San Francisco. The thought goes that if the Google buses end, at least some portion of the employees would find it too big of a hassle to commute and actually move near where their office is.
You hear arguments about gentrification, but there are plenty of fully gentrified neighborhoods in San Francisco with people who would be happy to see these commuters go away. This is about rent prices, housing shortages and a general feeling that these commuters have no skin in the game.
Of course, really we need more housing stock too, but that's a more difficult problem.
This is arguable. Those people probably live in SF because they want to spend their evenings and weekends in the city, therefore spending all their money there (including on basic living expenses, like groceries). Most people don't really spend any money during work hours (except maybe for lunch, but that's a moot point when talking about Google/Apple/Facebook).
Also, the two city taxes I can think of are property taxes (which are rolled into rents anyway) and sales taxes (which are paid whenever they buy something inside the city). I don't see how commuters don't pay city taxes.
I really think this is the big draw. I've heard Googlers complain about how crowded the SF office is on Fridays because of their peers from Mountain View finding excuses to work from their office so they can hit the town in the evening. Even people who live in the valley don't stay there for fun.
See I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and commute ~70km to Brisbane for work. So do tens of thousands here, so I find it really fascinating to see similar situations with vastly different consequences due to culture and other variables.
See I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and commute ~70km to Brisbane for work. So do tens of thousands here, so I find it really fascinating to see similar situations with vastly different consequences due to culture and other variables.
One of the things to note is that there is an incredible amount of traffic congestion during commute times on the freeway from SF to Mountain View and within San Francisco itself. We could double the capacity of our freeway system and they'd still be slow. So it can take well over an hour on the freeway each way plus an extra 20+ minutes just driving through SF to drop people off if they are any more than a couple miles from the nearest freeway exit.