SF Noe Valley "tech bus" (1103)

An SF "tech bus", popularly referred to as a "Google bus", following an SF Muni electric bus. The large, and largely unmarked, buses have become quite common in the residential portions of the city. The buses are chartered by companies such as Google, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook. They glide almost silently into neighborhoods, picking up tech workers to chauffeur them away to the company sites on the peninsula. They have become a symbol of the tensions that arise as the influx of high-tech workers are forcing up rents in SF neighborhoods, while those same workers are not dealing with the exigencies of public transit, parking, and all of the other facts of life traditionally encountered by neighborhood residents. As symbols of a form of elitism, the buses have become a site of protest (see weblink): www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Google-bus-backlash-S-F-to-impose-fees-on-tech-5163759.php