Facebook Planned To Build A Railroad But Hit A Dead End Before Work Began

In 2017, Facebook proposed to revamp an old railroad that ran through the San Francisco Bay Area known as the Dumbarton Rail Bridge. The goal behind this project was to ease congestion in the area after the now-Meta bought over Instagram and WhatsApp, which had caused its headcount to over 25,000 in just six years.

 
When the US$20 million project was being conceived, government officials such as Union City mayor Carol Dutra-Vernaci expressed how exciting the move was as the bridge was an important infrastructure in the East Bay.
 
However, by the time 2020 rolled around, Facebook had dismantled the project after it found it took on more than it could handle. The New York Times has just released a deep-dive into the proposal’s shortcomings and how tech companies’ launches into the infrastructure sector often end before they can even begin.
 
In the report, Elliot Schrage, the former vice president of communications and public policy at Facebook, noted that the reason the company even proposed the idea was because it saw itself as “stewards of the community” and felt like it had a responsibility to the online and physical community.
 
Plans for the railroad first stumbled across political barriers, and then they were fully hit by the pandemic, which finally threw it off the rails.
 

Warren Slocum, President of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, told the Times that he was “heartbroken” at the loss of the project, but he understood the business side of it.
 
Nevertheless, the report points out how when Facebook axed the whole thing, it left many in the community struggling to get through heavy traffic and long commutes as more tech companies continued to set up in the area and grow at an exponential amount. This in turn has caused afforable housing to be pushed further and further away from city centers.
 
This would seem to be a recurring theme of big tech firms trying to reach out to the community and offer to amp up infrastructure before pulling out. A similar instance happened sometime last year when Elon Musk’s Boring Company renounced its Hyperloop facility in Hawthorne, California, which was built to test out hyperspeed trains. The venture closed and the building was torn down to make room for a parking lot instead.
 
 
 
[via Futurism and Insider, cover photo 38836651 © GilbertC | Dreamstime.com]