I'd agree with it being bad for the quality of life, but eliminates is a bit of an exaggeration. It makes it more difficult, to be sure, but there's a BART station in South San Francisco and a free shuttle that runs between there and Oyster Point. For anyone coming up from the Peninsula or the South Bay, though, this might be a commuting improvement.
Of course, the big difference is that Stripe's current office is at the edge of SOMA and Mission Bay, within pretty short distance of the Embarcadero and Financial District. Their new office will be...a business park. No offense to business parks -- Bishop Ranch in San Ramon is unexpectedly lovely -- but they're rarely known for their vibrant cafés, restaurants and nightlife.
You're going from a local commute to bart -> walking to the office, to a local commute to bart -> going to a station that is skipped by 3/4 of bart lines (ie requires an xfer for Antioch, Pleasanton, or Fremont) -> a shitty bus. NB: Bart is ass and generally is too incompetent to align train and bus schedules.
This adds probably at least 45 minutes each way for anyone coming from SF or East Bay locations and using public transit. It's an enormous downgrade.
I have ridden BART and Caltrain in the past for work. I've had commutes that involve transfers, too -- usually Caltrain to MUNI.
I don't think what you're saying contradicts anything that I said -- I said that the move to SSF makes it more difficult to commute via BART, but that it was too strong to say that it "eliminates" the possibility of doing so.
In any case, I really suspect that if companies keep moving to the SF Bay Area and keep growing, they're going to have to start moving to places that are out of the city. The rent per square foot in SF is approaching $85/ft^2, the highest it's been since the original dotcom boom; downtown San Jose is around $60/ft^2, better but not that much better. But places like San Ramon, Fremont, non-downtown San Jose, and yes, South San Francisco are around $30/ft^2. Some would argue that staying in the Bay Area at all is silly for tech companies at this point; while I don't think I'd make that argument, if I had several hundred employees to find space for, I just don't think I'd do it in the City.
Before claiming incompetence consider there are at least 23 different transit agencies in the Bay Area BART has to coordinate with. Yes, we need a system that integrates seamlessly (I personally feel it, I ride BART from Oakland to Caltrain in Mountain View 10-12 times a week). But blaming BART alone for this problem misses the root cause: fragmented transit operators. We need a lead or unified agency like the MTA in NYC or WMATA in DC.
This isn't a very helpful argument. I live in Oakland and commute to San Francisco and rarely take Bart because there are many other options that don't involve me breathing directly from someone else's exhalation like we all are forced to on Bart.
Personally, I take casual carpool, https://sfcasualcarpool.com/, to work and a transbay bus home. Total cost is $6.50/day, which is cheaper than commuting by Bart, and because I live 30 mins walking from Bart, it is also much faster.
Yeah I couldn't give you stats on how many people do that commute via car, but bus vs BART is a no brainer. A 10-car BART train can hold about 1,000 people. Bus service can't scale like that (especially not on shared right of ways) which would definitely put you in the minority.
South city may as well be the middle of nowhere transit-wise but the difference between taking BART to Market St vs SSF isn't all that big.
I'm not sure it matters why I'm in the minority in my commute. And if I am in the minority in some populations, I might not be in others. It would seem that quite a few people that live in my neighborhood use the same transportation options that I am, although this is obviously anec-data.
I disagree with your last statement. BART is 4 miles from oyster point, so you would have to take a shuttle. I'm going to assume that is at least 20 minutes more, if I'm being generous. So, for me, that would equate to about a 90 minute commute each way, at a minimum, where as a commute to Market street via BART would be about a 50 minute minimum. 80 minutes per day is not a trivial amount of time for me.
Overall, I'm not sure what the argument here is. That a lot of people take BART? That we should be ok with more commute time?
it's 19 minutes each way if you ride the train, and roughly 30 minutes each way if you require a transfer. Plus more waiting time heading north due to worse service intervals.
I'm struggling to figure out how a one hour increase in commute time isn't a big deal. Without even discussing the local bus.
Most all of my coworkers from East Bay drive in, but my office is in Mission Bay and BART doesn't go there. People used to take BART to the shuttles but so many people were quitting as a company retention thing they started letting everyone wfh during rush hours, commute off hours and gave people free parking instead. I like the flexibility but it's still a pita.
Bay Area needs more robust interconnected public transit, and higher density housing near transit hubs.
Of course, the big difference is that Stripe's current office is at the edge of SOMA and Mission Bay, within pretty short distance of the Embarcadero and Financial District. Their new office will be...a business park. No offense to business parks -- Bishop Ranch in San Ramon is unexpectedly lovely -- but they're rarely known for their vibrant cafés, restaurants and nightlife.