Google Employees List “Commute” As Reason to Leave Company
by Judd WileyMay 3rd, 2008, 12:06 pm
Google Inc. NASDAQ: GOOG. Creator of the world’s premier internet search technology. Worth $581.29 a share today.
According to headhunter firm BINC, which publishes a blog, Ask BINC, one of the top five reasons why Google employees leave the company is the commute.
When Google was doing great people had no problem commuting down south from San Francisco City or up north from San Jose. Now that Google isn’t as explosive as it once was, people aren’t as willing to commute as they once were.
Even employees at a highly desirable company such as Google aren’t willing to put up with miserable commutes. Rush hour traffic in San Francisco is horrible. Nobody wants to sit in traffic for hours every morning and afternoon, no matter how progressive, tech-savvy, or environmentally friendly the city is.
No matter where you live, where you work, or how much money you make, a bad commute is a bad commute.
And it doesn’t have to be this way. If California was to add more capacity to its freeways, these Google employees wouldn’t have to spend so much time stuck in traffic, and perhaps less of them would leave the company.
The irony here is that employees of Google and other successful tech companies are paying the lion’s share of California taxes. These are the people who should be calling and emailing the governor, the legislators, and local city council members, demanding to know why the freeways aren’t being expanded.
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Posted in Highways, Traffic Congestion |
Expanding freeways would have another positive effect on the commute — no one would want to live in the bay area since it would be a boring freeway infested landscape like LA.
A better solution would be to push forward with plans to electrify Caltrain and move the SF terminal from SOMA to Market Street where it would meet up with BART lines and all of the MUNI lines. Add in a Geary subway while you’re at it so Googler’s out in the Richmond can get to the new Caltrain station.
While you’re at it, add enough passing tracks so limited stop expresses can bypass slower all-stops trains.
With a dedicated shuttle from the MV train station, they could get the downtown SF to Google commute to around 30 minutes, hard to beat driving at the speed limit, even on an empty freeway.
john, this is why the european urban transit model works so well…create hubs of interchange between multiple system types differentiating in speed, reach, density, etc.
efficient systems will get the passenger within a few blocks of any destination in the urban environment. multiple above- and below-ground options provide passengers with options, which spreads out the load across all aspects of the larger network. make a network fast, efficient and able to serve the needs of a diverse population and people will use it.
i’ve only been to SF once, and was staying in one of those southern suburbs near palo alto. everytime i wanted to visit the city i hopped on the caltrain and was always frustrated by the location and isolation of the SF terminal. they should definitely move it.