Did San Francisco's Google Bus Deal Just Set a Price for Curb Space?

San Francisco just announced a deal with the much-maligned private tech buses to charge them a fee for using city bus stops. Under the reported terms, the buses that shuttle commuters to and from Silicon Valley will pay the city about $100,000 a year — about a dollar a day per stop. The response so far has focused on whether or not this appeases the protestors, but that misses some of the larger picture: San Francisco just decided how much curb space is worth.

"They've established that there's an economic value to having dedicated curb space," says Columbia University planning scholar David King. "This is a huge issue if we're thinking about not just the shuttle buses but taxi services, ride-sharing services, and other things that could really take advantage of having space at the bus stops."