Why we protest the 'Google' buses
Published 4:48 pm, Monday, February 17, 2014
U.S. citizens agree to give up some fiscal freedom and tax ourselves for the benefit of society at large, but now our most wealthy citizens and corporations are opting out of this agreement. The most recent evidence is using public bus stops and ferry landings for purely private benefit.
Corporations are providing fast, comfortable and free transportation unavailable to the baristas, housecleaners and cooks who serve the corporate employees. By paying for private transportation, the corporations are saying that public transit is inadequate, a statement with which I agree.
It is the private solution to a public problem with which I disagree.
Google, Apple, Facebook and others should be required by our representative government to participate in the social contract; at some small cost to themselves, they should help improve mass transit for all.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge carries about 270,000 vehicles per day, and Highway 101 south of San Francisco carries more than 200,000 vehicles a day. Taking a few Apple cars off the road is not contribution enough from the most valuable corporation in the world.
What my son calls the Facebus, and the Googleboats, could be open to all. Or the corporations could work with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to establish bus rapid transit from San Francisco to San Jose. Or the corporations could help electrify Caltrain.
On the way to school, we pass the Facebus every day on Valencia between Chavez and 22nd streets. We've seen as many as six Facebuses in that short stretch, and zero to two Muni busses.
The social contract between the people and their government is being transformed by corporations. The solution is for corporations to operate for the public good while they make their private profit. Participate in society, rather than only profit from society.
We all heard the Angel Hack CEO's vision of a strictly enforced class structure that geographically defines where one is permitted to go in public, based on his or her wealth.
The Facebus and Googleboat embrace social stratification and alienation. These corporations employ modern Greyhound buses, except that I can't buy a ticket. It is also worrisome that the public bus stop is evolving into a private space.
People's alienation from each other and from contributing to the common good is an ongoing concern. If corporations would participate in society, in the social contract, maybe that would help break down the personal expectation of entitlement while preserving the quality of life for which everyone comes to the Bay Area.
Michael Barnes, a bio-pharmaceutical scientist, is the former mayor of Brisbane.