Strange

All Aboard the Google Bus. No, Really. It's a Bus.

by Jordan Yerman | March 11, 2007 at 10:55 am

3207 views | 10 Recommendations | 9 comments

I am uncomfortable with Google's growing hold on search and info management online, but there is no doubting the brilliance of this move. Anybody who lives in (or has visited) the San Francisco Bay Area knows how heinous the traffic is. On a typical day, traffic backs up from the Golden Gate Bridge to Novato, which is the north end of the next county. Silicon Valley is just as bad. Sitting in traffic is one of the worst quality-of-life downsides to Bay Area life, and is one of the things that keeps me from wanting to move back.

The perks of working at Google are the envy of Silicon Valley. Unlimited amounts of free chef-prepared food at all times of day. A climbing wall, a volleyball court and two lap pools. On-site car washes, oil changes and haircuts, not to mention free doctor checkups.

But the biggest perk may come with the morning commute.

In Silicon Valley, a region known for some of the worst traffic in the nation, Google, the Internet search engine giant and online advertising behemoth, has turned itself into Google, the mass transit operator. Its aim is to make commuting painless for its pampered workers--and keep attracting new recruits in a notoriously competitive market for top engineering talent.

And Google can get a couple of extra hours of work out of employees who would otherwise be behind the wheel of a car.

The company now ferries about 1,200 employees to and from Google daily--nearly one-fourth of its local work force--aboard 32 shuttle buses equipped with comfortable leather seats and wireless Internet access. Bicycles are allowed on exterior racks, and dogs on forward seats, or on their owners' laps if the buses run full.

Riders can sign up to receive alerts on their computers and cell phones when buses run late. They also get to burnish their green credentials, not just for ditching their cars, but because all Google shuttles run on biodiesel. Oh, and the shuttles are free.

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Actual News Geezer

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:05 on March 12th, 2007

This was a good spot, Jordan! Looks like the old heady days of the pre-bubbleburst are back...

Jordan Yerman

at 09:57 on March 13th, 2007

One thing the pre-dot-bomb Internet folks understood was quality of life. As web commerce began to follow the growth trends of traditional comemrce, workers went back to being drones. As far as I see it, the point wasn't the fooseball tables, but that these startups saw their workers as actual people. In that sense, Google is getting it right.

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at 16:36 on January 7th, 2009

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at 03:17 on March 9th, 2009