Part of the idea, Paine noted, is to make sure the big private buses “yield to Muni,” but that’s not going to be easy: These vehicles are huge, and if a tech shuttle and a Muni bus can’t fit in the same stop, and the shuttle stops in the middle of the street and waits, it’s going to back up everyone.
Most of the focus of the proponents of the private bus system is that it gets cars off the roads. Speaker after speaker told of living in San Francisco and taking the buses to work on the Peninsula, and how it allowed them to avoid buying a car. Those are the Google talking points. And in the abstract, if you don’t spend much time thinking about it, they make sense: Sup. Scott Wiener testified that “these shuttles are part of our goal to be a transit-first city.”
But they’re also part of a trend toward private-sector control of what used to be public services. There was a time, not even that long ago, when people who made as much money as the tech moguls, and corporations like Google and Apple, were taxed at a rate that allowed the government to provide public infrastructure. Now, Apple sends its profits to Ireland and creates bogus offices in Nevada, and a company with staggering profits – profits that would make the corporate barons of old shake their heads in disbelief – pays almost no federal or state taxes at all.
Sup. David Campos testifies against the shuttle deal
And instead of San Mateo County, or BART, or Caltrain using tax money to build the necessary public bus and train system to get these employees to work, government has essentially given up and said: Let the private sector do it.
Sarah Brant, who was born and raised in San Francisco, testified that the tech buses are nothing to celebrate; they’re a sign of failure. “It makes me sad that we don’t have a regional transportation system,” she said. “These renegade corporations are doing what they want to do,” she told the MTA. “Why don’t you create your own public system?”
But no: we have buses with WiFi carrying certain classes of workers, from certain companies, to their place of employment. It’s great for them: As one Google worker testified, if he didn’t have WiFi on the bus, his commute wouldn’t be productive and he’d have to work extra hours.
I was almost embarrassed to hear that. Seriously, talk about picking up the Clue Phone: For most of the people who don’t have private shuttles, commuting is frustrating, and wastes time. But there’s no WiFi on Muni, because the city can’t afford it.
It’s really, really hard to avoid the class issues here. Except that the MTA thinks this is purely a transportation issue.
Sup. David Campos argued that the proposed pilot program “simply does not go far enough.” He noted that the $1 fee is really low, considering all the real impacts the shuttles create, and asked the MTA to send the proposal back for more work. “I don’t think we should be vilifying tech workers, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a frank discussion about what these shuttles do,” he said.
In fact, Campos told me later, the MTA plan is only going to increase tension between the tech community and other San Franciscans. “We need to give tech and the community time to have a real conversation,” he said. Charging luxury buses that serve some of the most profitable companies in American history less per stop than it costs everyone else to ride a Muni bus just seems so inexcusable.
The MTA argued that state law prohibits San Francisco from charging more for this program than it costs to administer it. But the League of Pissed Off Voters makes a good case: This fee was the result of a negotiation, and the tech companies could have agreed to a higher fee. And if what we need is a vote of the public, fine – let’s put it on the November ballot. A move to tax the Google Buses would probably win by about 75 percent.
At this point, all we have is a plan that creates more anger and frustration. “We are very concerned that the tech industry is privatizing public transit and not giving back,” Jane Martin, of People Organized to Win Employment Rights, noted. Martin works with low-income people in Hunters Point and the Bayview, where bus service is getting cut. People who can’t afford $2 for Muni fares get fined $100 for getting on the bus – while people who make six-figure salaries get their own – free – private ride.
Testimony at the hearing showed that many of the shuttles carry workers entirely within San Francisco. But the rest of us can’t get on those buses. “We don’t see a Muni bus coming, and then along comes the private bus, and they aren’t paying anything,” one person testified.
And a lot of San Franciscans agree.
