Google bus blocked in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO ( Reuters) — A Google Inc. commuter bus was blocked in San Francisco’s Mission district for about an hour Monday morning, highlighting many residents’ growing concern that an influx of affluent technology workers is driving up costs in the city.

“San Francisco, not for sale” and “Stop evictions now” numbered among the slogans yellow-vested activists chanted as they surrounded the double-decker bus. Google’s offices are in Mountain View, about 34 miles away from the incident.

The protest, organized by an advocacy group called Heart of the City, took aim at private commuter buses which whisk thousands of employees from stops around San Francisco to jobs at technology companies south of the city such as Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google.

Advocates of the buses said they ease traffic on already clogged highways as workers give up driving individual cars for the convenience of riding in the buses, which usually come with plush seats and WiFi.

Foes said the buses jam up municipal bus stops and remove potential customers from cash-strapped public transportation systems, including regional rail service, that could use their revenue.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing a set of rules around commuter buses and the use of public bus stops, a spokesman Paul Rose said via e-mail.

“The proposed policy balances the need to minimize impacts on Muni with the benefits that shuttles provide by taking thousands of cars off the street,” Rose said. The agency plans to present the proposal to its board in January. If approved, a pilot test will go into affect in the summer, he added.

“We certainly don’t want to cause any inconvenience to San Francisco residents and we and others in our industry are working with SFMTA to agree on a policy on shuttles in the city,” a Google spokeswoman said.

Bemused Google workers spent an hour sitting on the bus until the activists disbanded, many of the workers sending tweets about the incident.

“My shuttle came under siege this morning,” tweeted Alejandro Villarreal, who attached a photo of the scene as it appeared through the bus window. Villarreal’s LinkedIn profile identifies him as a program manager at Google.