Night Schooled

For about two weeks last spring, the Bay Area was poised to get an affordable late-night transit option between the Mission and the East Bay, when aptly named startup Night School proposed to shuttle late-night riders in school buses—which otherwise don't get much use in the middle of the night. As journalist Susie Cagle tells it, those plans fell apart in part because the startup wanted to use licensed, insured professional drivers—unlike the wilier strategy of "transportation network companies" like Uber and Lyft—and thus ran into the "wall of bureaucracy" that is the California Public Utilities Commission. [Previously; Pacific Standard]