yikes, it takes a while to commute around here
for those of you who don't know, google provides a pretty cool service for employees who want to live in san francisco: a free shuttle. not only is the shuttle free, but during your commute, you can connect onto the internet and do work. somehow, they have a high speed wireless internet uplink on the bus which is shared to the passengers via a wireless router. as you can imagine, this is pretty nice because you can actually get work done while you're commuting; thus, further increasing your productivity. this shuttle is so popular that they actually use full size charter buses which seat about 50 people and they run 6 times to google in the morning and 6 times back to san francisco in the evening.
since the south bay is pretty boring, i'm living in downtown san francisco. yesterday, i tried this shuttle for the first time and it was pretty cool, except:
since the south bay is pretty boring, i'm living in downtown san francisco. yesterday, i tried this shuttle for the first time and it was pretty cool, except:
- the internet connection was broken
- the bus was at capacity, so i was kinda squished in a window seat at the back of the bus
- and it took a full hour to make the drive and then i had to take the muni from the drop-off point
posted by markjen at 1/25/2005 02:13:00 PM
5 Comments:
Actually, an hour and half isn't too bad, even for rush hour. I used to do the commute in about an hour in a car, but you can sleep in, work on the Internet (when working), etc., while the bus driver handles the stress of traffic. You could take the train (CalTrain), but it's even slower... I agree that the South Bay is boring, but if want to shorten your commute and have a semi-interesting place to live, check out nearby Palo Alto. Not SF, but it isn't one gigantic strip mall either. The downtown has some energy and nearby Stanford University gives it some international vibes with all the out-of-town students.
The January/February issue of Business 2.0 has a short article on the bus. Sorry to hear the Internet connection is down. -- Owen Thomas, Chief of Reporters, Business 2.0
I live (and work) in Palo Alto and it's not too bad but it isn't San Francisco either. I do hate commuting though. That bus thing is convenient. The Caltrain isn't bad either (you can usually find a comfortable spot and work on your laptop) but then you have the hassle of getting to the station and to work.
Congrats on the new job and I look forward to reading your blog daily. I live in Wyoming, my commute to work is 5 min.....
Interesting that you'll blog about your experiences at Google. Of course, you're going to be extra careful not to divulge corporate secrets, right? Anyway, I've been to San Fran before. It is nice place, if you can afford it. BTW, I'm squinting to read your text. Can you change the color scheme so I don't get google-eyed?
Cheers,
tyanon
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