San Francisco to Tax ‘Google Buses’

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• January 6, 2014, 7:27 PM ET

San Francisco to Tax ‘Google Buses’

ByJeff Elder

AP

San Francisco will tax the “Google buses,” a little bit, anyway.

The luxury buses cruise the sometimes cozy streets of San Francisco’s neighborhoods, picking up and dropping off commuting techies. They’ve become symbols of the growing resentment around gentrification and rising rents in the Bay Area. Many companies  in Silicon Valley to the south pay for the bus service, but the derisive nickname “Google buses” has stuck.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced an 18-month pilot program Monday to charge the shuttle companies fees based on the number of stops they make in city bus zones. The shuttle companies would be charged $1 per stop, which the mayor’s office estimates will bring in approximately $1.6 million in total revenue for the entire pilot. That total is intentionally limited: State law limits such fees to the cost of providing a service or policy. So all of the fees will go into policing the program.

The city and Silicon Valley companies including...

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

BART Strike Commute Alternatives: Bike-to-Bus, to Work!

BART Strike Commute Alternatives: Buses, Ferries, Telecommuting

With a BART strike looking increasingly likely, here are some alternatives for getting around.

 

By Sasha Lekach, Bay City News Service

With the likelihood of a BART strike effective [shortly], many Bay Area commuters will have to find alternate ways to get to and from work and other destinations with the strike possibly extending into the weekend.

BART will provide a limited number of free roundtrip charter buses at nine East Bay BART stations starting Friday morning. Buses will pick up ticketed passengers at El Cerrito del Norte, West Oakland, Concord, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Dublin/Pleasanton, San Leandro, Hayward and Fremont stations starting at 5 a.m.

BART officials said there will be five to 15 buses at each station. The buses will drop off passengers at San Francisco's Temporary Transbay Terminal. On the return trip, riders will board buses between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the terminal. Those buses will go to West Oakland, where transfers can be made to other buses heading to various East Bay destinations.

[See Patch's list of transportation alternatives in the East Bay.]

Excerpt reblogged via Patch.com.

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