The Untold Story of the Google Buses That Took Over San Francisco

Activists successful San Francisco’s Mission District weren’t giving up easily. David Campos had taken the baton from Chris Daly arsenic the metropolis Supervisor starring the anti-gentrification advocates, who were anchored successful a fistful of nonprofit assemblage groups. During the springtime festivities for Cinco de Mayo successful 2015, Campos called for a moratorium connected each caller lodging operation successful the Mission, saying it was the lone mode to springiness the territory “a warring chance.”

The thought that caller flat buildings would propulsion rents higher was—and is—a root of endless exasperation for lodging advocates. Scott Wiener, who’d taken a much centrist way than Campos, was present connected San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and led the complaint against the Mission moratorium, which was voted down twice. It was excessively drastic a measurement adjacent for the progressive-leaning Board. But improvement successful the territory slowed dramatically successful the look of each the governmental resistance: a projected 10-story flat gathering dubbed “the Monster successful the Mission” by activists had go a awesome of the combat and was yet abandoned. (As of this penning it was being revived arsenic an affordable lodging project, though absorption remains, and nary shovels person been turned.)

Yet the gentrification arguments weren’t only, oregon adjacent mainly, astir the rent. Nothing would amusement that amended than the theatrical protests targeting what were universally known arsenic the Google buses—or, much commonly successful galore circles, the “fucking Google buses.”

Cari Spivack, the mid-level Google worker who archetypal created the company’s commuter shuttle program, ne'er imagined she’d beryllium sparking a yearslong governmental enactment implicit whether tech was destroying San Francisco’s soul. Her information was elemental and personal: She was sick of sitting successful traffic.

A decorator by trade, Spivack had been moving astatine the networking institution 3Com successful the aboriginal 2000s erstwhile she saw the elemental elegance of Google’s website, past conscionable a achromatic surface with the Google logo, a container to benignant your query, and a fastener that said, “I’m feeling lucky.” Spivack thought its axenic functionality was inspiring, and a person of a person connected her to a hiring manager astatine the company. She was brought connected arsenic a merchandise manager, joining Google astatine a magical clip erstwhile determination were conscionable a fewer 100 employees. It was a imagination job—except for the 45-minute white-knuckle commute from her location successful Bernal Heights to the Google gathering successful Mountain View.

She tried taking Caltrain, the creaking, then-diesel-powered commuter railroad that connected Silicon Valley and the city, but with inconvenient stations and glacially dilatory and infrequent trains, it took forever. She tried carpooling, and that worked better, but the coordination was a changeless hassle. “We’re each leaving astatine the aforesaid clip going to the aforesaid spot connected the aforesaid road—I thought determination has to beryllium a amended way,” she recounted later. A person who worked astatine Genentech, the biotech pioneer based successful the concern metropolis of South San Francisco, mentioned that the institution had a autobus that picked radical up astatine the Glen Park BART presumption and dropped them disconnected astatine the office. Maybe Google could bash that?

“Google was the benignant of spot wherever you saw the patterns of problems and conscionable came up with solutions,” she says. The institution had hired her, successful fact, for that precise mindset. She was a merchandise manager connected the engineering squad with nary inheritance successful engineering. But cipher rather knew what merchandise absorption was anyway, and she could thatch herself programming. She had the prime that was judged “Googley,” arsenic the institution would travel to telephone it, and though a machine subject grade from a prestigious assemblage would aboriginal beryllium each but required for galore jobs, it wasn’t similar that astatine the time. Employees were encouraged to deliberation creatively and usage 20 percent of their clip for their ain projects, which could see astir anything—even commuter buses.

“I was yapping astir it astatine luncheon with radical and they were like, ‘Larry would emotion that idea,’” she recalled, referring to cofounder Larry Page. A fewer days aboriginal she mentioned it to him successful the cafeteria line—the institution inactive worked that mode successful 2004—and helium said sure, fig it out. So she did, researching the outgo of a bus, wherever it would stop, and trying to reply the captious question of whether anyone would really thrust it. Page liked the thought of reducing the company’s c footprint, Spivack says, though Sergey Brin was doubtful that radical would beryllium consenting to permission their cars down successful the city.

Spivack sent a company-wide email to gauge interest, and erstwhile astir each worker who lived successful San Francisco responded, she figured she’d astatine slightest person capable radical for 1 bus. It would prime up astatine Glen Park BART and astatine a parking batch adjacent Candlestick Park, and it would marque 2 trips a time successful each direction. The institution gave her a period to beryllium the concept.

“I deliberation we had 24 radical astatine the start, and it conscionable kept expanding and expanding and increasing, and we conscionable kept going,” she recounts. Google liked to telephone everything a “beta test,” which Spivack saw arsenic a omniscient mode to debar imperishable commitments, but her inaugural was intelligibly a winner.

“People started complaining due to the fact that they lived successful a antithetic portion of the city, and they’re like, ‘We’d emotion a halt here, we’d emotion a halt there.’” She had ne'er envisioned the buses serving the bosom of the city, but she dug into her caller relation arsenic a postulation planner with gusto, researching neighborhoods and streets and imaginable autobus routes and stops, and processing rules connected the fly. “I had immoderate things that were truly important to maine like, fig one, the autobus should ne'er instrumentality a near crook astatine a postulation light,” she says, lest they provoke delays and aggravated drivers.

It wasn’t agelong earlier immoderate Google engineers volunteered to enactment wireless connected the buses—a caller thought astatine the time, erstwhile Wi-Fi was inactive emerging and didn’t beryllium connected moving vehicles. Management liked the thought that everyone could support working. The buses besides chipped astatine the occupation of not capable parking successful Mountain View, which would go a large motivator aboriginal connected arsenic Google’s caput number soared.

Spivack, who was inactive doing the shuttle enactment connected her 20-percent time, successful 2006 would “roll disconnected ” the project, arsenic they accidental astatine tech companies, and a full-time manager would instrumentality over. Meanwhile, different large Silicon Valley companies that had a batch of employees surviving successful the city, including Facebook, Apple, and Yahoo, began to rotation up their ain shuttle services. By the mediate of the adjacent decennary there’d beryllium galore hundreds of tech institution buses serving the city, carrying 10,000 radical a day.

The commuter shuttles had proliferated successful the precocious 2000s without overmuch fuss. The metropolis was mired successful the Great Recession, and with unemployment topping 10 percent and truthful galore mortgages upside down, radical had bigger concerns. By the aboriginal 2010s, though, it looked similar 1999 tech mania each implicit again, and the buses seemed to beryllium everywhere, with Google deploying the largest fleet. Operated by backstage firms similar Bauer's Intelligent Transportation, galore of them were luxury coaches, sometimes double-decker, overmuch larger than metropolis buses, and they seemed retired of place, appearing arsenic outsize apparitions arsenic they crawled crossed narrow, sloping vicinity streets, carnal symbols of the powerfulness of the tech manufacture and the precedence it seemed to enjoy. Since 1 autobus equals dozens of cars, residents successful a precise environmentally conscious metropolis mightiness person been expected to clasp them, oregon astatine slightest tolerate an businesslike signifier of transit.

That logic did not transportation the day.

The complaints began successful Noe Valley, an unassuming but progressively upscale enclave of aged Victorians and low-rise apartments conscionable westbound of the Mission. The tech shuttles, usually black, oregon achromatic and gray, sometimes utilized the nationalist autobus stops, but they were not for the public. Their patrons stood conspicuously successful lines connected quiescent sidewalks successful their Allbirds and jeans, staring astatine their phones—walking symbols of a caller world successful which rich, young professionals, astir of them white, were pushing families and the moving mediocre from their homes. Even different prosperous radical who couldn’t spend million-dollar homes oregon $5,000 rents were feeling the compression from what had travel to consciousness similar an invasion.

Noe Valley wasn’t hip, by immoderate stretch, not similar the Mission oregon definite corners of SoMa, but it had go fashionable with young families and was besides convenient for commuting southbound to Silicon Valley. As the shuttles proliferated, truthful did the complaints. Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represented the neighborhood, led an effort to promote the buses to usage the bigger commercialized arteries.

That would rapidly backfire: Now the buses were adjacent much visible, and they began utilizing busier metropolis autobus stops on already congested commercialized corridors, sometimes interfering with Muni work and further irritating neighbors. The city’s Municipal Transportation Agency, which was liable for postulation arsenic good arsenic trains and buses, tried to prosecute the companies connected imaginable solutions, specified arsenic adjusting routes and stops, but wasn’t making overmuch headway.

Gillian Gillett, who was successful complaint of proscription argumentation for Mayor Ed Lee, got a telephone 1 greeting successful the autumn of 2013 from a workfellow astatine the MTA, asking her to articulation a gathering with the tech companies. Gillett, gangly and blond, was a information expert and a commanding beingness with intricate cognition of the issues and small clip for posturing. She was often impatient with the city’s deficiency of tech savvy, and specifically its deficiency of involvement successful caller tools and caller sources of information that would precise evidently beryllium adjuvant successful solving proscription problems. She could beryllium withering successful her disapproval of unreliable politicians and incompetent metropolis bureaucrats, but astatine the aforesaid clip was personally offended that attacking tech workers was present portion of the playbook for section progressives. She was a techie herself aft all, by assemblage and disposition, adjacent if she’d gone to assemblage astatine St. John’s successful Maryland, a bastion of the wide arts.

On this day, though, it was the tech companies that were drafting Gillett’s ire.

Google and Facebook and the remainder did not request the city’s support to tally the shuttles, since backstage buses are regulated by the state. And they hadn’t asked. But from a proscription readying constituent of presumption determination were evident benefits to moving intimately with the city. If the MTA knew the shuttle schedules and routes, it could coordinate with the nationalist buses, set traffic-signal cadences and determination stops astir to amended support the postulation flowing. The autobus fleets were besides collecting a batch of information connected congestion and speeds connected metropolis streets—information golden for a information expert similar Gillett.

Carli Paine, a affable MTA staffer with a master’s grade successful metropolis planning, had been charged with trying to coordinate with the tech companies and stem the increasing fig of complaints and conflicts with Muni. About 50 radical from the assorted companies were present gathered successful the large league country connected the 3rd level of the MTA building. Paine was politely trying to explain, again, wherefore the metropolis needed them to stock their autobus routes and schedules, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. The firms had sent authorities relations representatives, whose jobs were fundamentally to garbage thing that wasn’t mandatory, and they were stonewalling; the instrumentality said they could mostly bash what they wanted, and that’s what they were going to do.

When the Facebook typical began lecturing astir however sharing autobus schedules would beryllium an penetration of privateness for the radical connected board—“What if 1 of the buses was attacked by a terrorist?” she asked—Gillett had heard enough.

“I stood up and said, ‘Hey, I’m from the mayor’s office. Are you kidding me?’”

She held up the latest contented of WIRED magazine, which featured a representation of the autobus routes, cleverly derived from the societal media posts of the Google and Facebook employees riding them. “Are you kidding me?” she demanded again. “Everyone knows wherever your stops are. Politicians run astatine them, right? Recruiters effort to poach employees from different companies astatine the aforesaid stop, right? You’ve got these truly large buses, right? It’s not intelligence spot we’re talking astir here. And you’ve got this precise benignant civilian servant present who is trying to assistance enactment this retired for everyone, including you.”

Then she unopen the gathering down, conscionable 15 minutes in.

“You’re each going to permission due to the fact that this is simply a bullshit meeting,” she recalls saying. “You volition not conscionable with the metropolis until you travel backmost with your engineers and your proscription planners.” The gathering dispersed, and a fewer minutes aboriginal she got a substance summoning her to the mayor’s office. “What did you do?” Ed Lee demanded. “You conscionable pissed disconnected each tech institution successful San Francisco.” She explained, and helium told her to spell location for the day. She retreated to her flat successful the Mission, not definite if she inactive had a job.

The pursuing Monday, arsenic she was walking to Ritual Coffee, determination was a commotion astatine the intersection of Valencia and 24th Street. Protesters, immoderate of them successful clown suits, were blocking a autobus and pranking those connected committee by pretending they were metropolis inspectors and handing retired citations. Led by an creation corporate called Heart of the City, the protesters delayed the autobus for astir 20 minutes, portion celebrating it each connected societal media. Gillett’s telephone buzzed. It was the mayor: “Come spot maine now.” It seemed the companies were abruptly anxious to meet. Lee told Gillett to get it done. “Within a week we had a gathering that was wholly different,” she said aboriginal with a wry smile.

The protests, though, had lone conscionable begun.

From City connected the Edge by Jonathan Weber. Copyright © 2026 by Jonathan Weber. Reprinted by support of Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.