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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

I've read a few articles noting the tension between private bus services and public space. I don't live in Silicon Valley, but it sounds like these private buses are really taking advantage of public space and I think the city needs to step in, write up some rules for fair use and generate revenue from this private system.

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Generate revenue from these? (that is, make up and levy a new tax)

Were it not for these buses, there would be more cars on the road (and jostling for parking spots, and more pollution) and more people piling into Muni, Caltrain and BART during rush hour. These buses, like the bathrooms in Starbucks, are a private company providing a public good.

I work for a company that doesn't give me these buses. I wish they did. I'm plenty envious. But I am under no illusion that these private bus systems owe me anything more than the lightened traffic burden they already gave me.

Or the people wouldn't live so far away from where they work thus freeing up more housing and lessening (at least for a time) the skyrocketing rental situation in the city.

I don't think that is necessarily the case. I live in SF and work in Sunnyvale and would ever even consider leaving SF as long as I'm single.

Even if the shuttle is convenient, it is still 2-3 hours of your day gone, every day.

Not necessarily. I hate these articles just as much as the next techie, but there is no denying that Google is solving a problem they are creating: if they didn't offer these buses then people wouldn't live in SF anywhere NEAR as frequently and there wouldn't be as much traffic: so they offer the buses.

I do think they should be paying some sort of fees to use public bus stops etc., but everything else I disagree with in the article and think it's bullshit.

If people wouldn't work at a company in the valley without the private shuttles because it would be too difficult to get there, then the company is clearly getting enormous benefit from the arrangement. It is certainly a good thing that they reduce the number of cars on the road, but it isn't clear to me that all of those people would still be going that far to work everyday without the shuttle. I'm not sure I see it as "providing a public good" for that reason.

Shuttle busses also go to places far from Silicon Valley such as Berkeley, Santa Cruz, etc. I do think that many of those people wouldn't work in Silicon Valley without the shuttles.

Can you elaborate on how the buses are taking advantage of public space?

I've read they often make use of public bus stops, blocking the publicly funded transportation system.

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