Loony Left Stage Google Bus ‘Performance’ in San Francisco

There's a big clash between the loony-left haters-of-progress, who love government intervention, and the moneyed high tech crowd that is taking over the city of San Francisco.

Something of a front line in the battle has been established at the bus stops where buses for Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc. pick up the techies every morning in SF and transport them deep into the epicenter of Silicon Valley, where they do techie things for big money.

The loony left hates this, largely because the money being made by the techies is being used to bid up real estate prices in the SF bay area and also causing rents to soar. (SEE: Condo Prices Go Crazy in San Francisco and NYC). The price climbs are further fueled, of course, by the city's restrictive construction regulations, which have been encouraged by the loony left and make it very difficult to build in SF to meet the exploding demand. (SEE: Why San Francisco Has Such a Boring Skyline and San Francisco Progress Meets Lefty Wackos).

Further, new eviction laws make it somewhat easier for landlords to evict, in some apartments, renters who live under rent control and replace them with market paying tenants. This, of course, really drives the loony left who live in these apartments, to even loonier heights, if you can imagine.

Today, the loonies staged what they called a "performance protest." The SF Examiner reports:

[J]ust hours before the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to address an issue related to commuter shuttles -- several dozen Eviction-Free San Francisco protesters blocked a Google bus at 24th and Valencia streets this morning, handing out fake "Gmuni" passes for San Franciscans to board the vehicle.

"The Google bus is going to wait because the bus has a place for us," a suited woman wearing a fake Google Glass device announced into a microphone, as six fellow protesters dressed in red, blue, yellow and white acrobat-like jumpsuits blocked the vehicle.

The woman, who called herself Judith Hart and president of Gmuni, explained she was launching a pilot program allowing San Franciscans to ride Google buses for free, given an imminent hike in Muni fares. But police helped the shuttle shut the door on non-Google employees.

"It was unsuccessful; it turned into a protest," Hart said. "I called my higher-ups and they said they put [Gmuni] on hold until the environmental impact hearing happens today."

The blockade at 9 a.m. lasted about 15 minutes and was planned to bring attention to a 2 p.m. hearing today in which the Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on an environmental report appeal for a pilot program allowing commuter shuttles to use Muni stops. Under the program, a select 200 stops will be available for commuter shuttles for $1 per stop per day starting in July.

Eviction-Free San Francisco protester Deepa Varma, wearing a blue Gmuni shirt, acknowledged the Gmuni program and passes were a hoax. "It's April Fools' Day," said Varma, a 33-year-old tenant attorney.

"We'd like to see tech contribute to public transportation and not just pay for private shuttles for their employees. Muni, Caltrain, BART - they're all underfunded," added Amanda Ream, another protester.

The blockade was peaceful, with the most confrontation happening when Bernal Heights resident Robert Irminger, 54, tried to force his way on the Google bus. He complained to a police sergeant that the bus driver grabbed and pushed him off the shuttle.

"I was trying to get on because I had this card that said 'free pass,'" Irminger said. "I was just walking by and it was primarily to draw attention to the hearing."

Eviction-Free San Francisco has staged several tech bus blockades since December in the Mission district and mid-Market Street area, none quite as staged as Tuesday's "performance."

RW note: Those uniforms and balloons with Gmuni on them cost money. It is unlikely it is loony money, Some one must be funding them. Could it be Muni, Caltrain and BART unions, since the protesters seemed to have an odd fixation on a link between these buses and the funding of public transportation?