Bay Area poll: Offices are still dangerous places

Three quarters of residents said they plan to go back to solo driving

Half of Bay Area residents wary of safety in office work spaces amid pandemic; most also plan to drive solo.

Half of Bay Area residents recently surveyed by a prominent business group said they believed the coronavirus makes office work dangerous. According to the Bay Area Council poll of 1,000 registered voters, about one in five felt working in the office was “very unsafe,” while a third described it as “somewhat unsafe.”

Only 14% considered office work “very safe,” while slightly more than a third though it was “somewhat safe.” The poll’s margin of error was around 3%.

The survey was conducted in the nine-county region three weeks ago, and pollster Ruth Bernstein cautioned that public sentiment is changing quickly on COVID-related issues. “As the vaccine is coming out we’re seeing opinions change,” said Bernstein, CEO of Oakland’s EMC Research, adding that lifting of restrictions is also affecting people’s perceptions of safety.

However, said Bay Area Council CEO Jim Wunderman, “What we really all want to be able to do is look around the corner and I think this poll can help us to do that.”

Transit ridership plummeted during the pandemic, and people remained wary of buses and trains, the survey indicated. About a quarter of respondents considered transit “very unsafe,” with nearly 40% saying transit travel was “somewhat unsafe.”

Questions about how residents usually get to work suggested that nearly three-quarters plan to go back to driving alone for work and errands at least two days per week after the pandemic, about the same percentage of pre-pandemic solo drivers. And while 43% of residents said they had walked or bicycled for transportation at least two days a week before COVID, only 26% said they thought they would do that after the pandemic. Although nearly a third of people said they often rode transit before the pandemic, only one in five said they planned to take buses and trains afterward.

Still, significantly fewer residents appeared to be planning to return to a fiveday-a-week commute, with about 60% saying they did so pre-pandemic and only about 40% saying they would after the pandemic. About 16% of employed residents said they wouldn’t go into workplaces in the future, a slight rise over the 10% who said they were fully remote before the virus hit.

Answers about post-pandemic commuting plans reflected differences among job types, income levels and races that have been highlighted during the outbreak, with lower-income, Black and Latino residents less likely to be able to work remotely, and fewer saying they would cut the number of days they would commute compared to before the pandemic.

The Bay Area Council represents hundreds of employers including Silicon Valley technology giants Google, Facebook, Apple and Salesforce. Wunderman pointed to Salesforce’s plans for a flexible model mixing remote and office-based work, and suggested that employers “meter” when employees are in the office. “We certainly don’t want to see a situation where everybody’s driving in at the same time,” Wunderman said. “There’s actually a really good opportunity here for the employer community and employees to work together to find solutions.

“We are in this incredible moment in history where we’re just about beginning to see the start of something different, and we’re all wondering what that’s going to look like.”