Update:
#SFMTA board approves commuter bus shuttle pilot. One director absent.
— Jerold Chinn (@jchinn84) January 22, 2014
SFGate reports that protests against the Google buses and the gentrification they have come to represent proceeded the SFMTA’s 1 p.m. meeting. Meanwhile a UC Berkeley study shows that 40 percent of the tech workers would move closer to work if the shuttles didn’t exist.
Meanwhile at the SFMTA, one spectator sums up the ongoing meeting as follows:
#sfmta summary (1/2): tech workers: in favor cyclists in city: in favor shuttle industry: in favor muni drivers & riders: in favor
— Aimee (@aimeeble) January 21, 2014
Updates later. See SFGate story below with links out.
On Tuesday, the few dozen protesters — in front of a large pool of media — surrounded the buses and prevented them from moving. Some plastered a sign to one of the coaches that read “Gentrification and Eviction Technologies” in Google-type script. They chanted, “Stop evictions.” By 9:45 a.m., police had cleared out the crowd and the buses had departed, though their destination was not clear.
“At the very least, it gets the mayor’s attention,” said protester Tory Antoni, who lives in an apartment in the Mid-Market area where he says an influx of well-paid tech workers has driven up the cost of rent. “We want to stop the evictions.” The whole story is here.
I love it. It’s very much in the longstanding tradition of protest in the Bay Area.
Yes, there is a long-standing tradition of a small minority complaining that others have more than they do, and demanding that the government “do something about it”.
There’s also a long-standing tradition of the government and the silent majority ignoring those envious whiners.
You mean native Americans?
I didn’t notice any native Americans blocking the shuttle bus.
They mostly looked like they were from Norway by way of Iowa.
The protesters are idiots. If they spent half the energy they spend blocking busses on doing productive things like tutoring neighborhood children and asking the tech workers to volunteer at local charities, then the neighborhood would be a better place for everyone involved. Instead they’d rather spew vitriol. It comes across as pathetic jealousy and does nothing to advance their ’cause’.
Agreed. They won’t engage in tutoring and other productive things because that actually takes work, and there’ll be no cameras rolling.
losers
grasping
straws
3 words
Unfortunately it’s true. These people are getting scary. Can we organize protests to throw paint on all these protesters?
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/01/21/18749504.php
Wow, disgusting.
maybe you’d like to do a story on how these righteous protestors went to a Google employee’s house in Berkeley and prevented him individually from driving to work today and posted memos about him all over his neighborhood? It is only a matter of time until things turn violent, and these protestors and their cheerleaders in the “press” are going to have a little blood on their hands.
Any source on that?