Amazon to buy more Seattle streetcar service

[CHamilton]

Amazon to Buy 4th Streetcar, Fund 10-Minute Headways

Today the Mayor’s office sent out a press release with exciting information related to Amazon’s expansions plans with relation to public compensation for an alley vacation necessary for the development to occur. From the press release.

The overall proposal includes $5.5 million of support for the Seattle Streetcar. This funding will allow the City to purchase an additional streetcar vehicle and increase operational support for 10 years as a part of the Planned Community Development benefit package. In total, these benefits will increase street car service to every ten minutes during the workday. Alley vacation public benefits proposed by Amazon include:

Supporting a higher level of service for the Seattle Streetcar, including the purchase of a fourth vehicle;

 

[CHamilton]

Amazon plan adds more streetcar trips

Streetcars would arrive as often as every 10 minutes in South Lake Union, if city officials approve Amazon.com's offer to buy a railcar and sponsor added trips.

The e-commerce giant wants to pay the city $5.5 million for streetcar and bicycling improvements that would help its employees get to work. The plan would also bring a public benefit, to compensate for Amazon taking city-owned alley space to build its high-rise Denny Triangle campus, Mayor Mike McGinn announced Friday.

 

[Anderson]

What's interesting about that article is actually this paragraph:

The streetcar launched service in December 2008, costing $52 million plus nearly $4 million in nearby utility work. Nearly half, or $25 million, was paid by landowner Paul Allen's real-estate arm, Vulcan, which has extensive holdings in the neighborhood, including the 1.8 million-square-foot Amazon.com headquarters complex, which was recently put on the market.

Talk about a throwback to the old interurbans...this is the first I've heard of developers more or less throwing half of the cost to put in mass transit...and then putting in the whole cost to bulk up service. Actually, this seems to be part of a trend across the nation. Witness the other recent article on the Cotton Belt Line in the Dallas area on the one hand, or what I believe is the collective gut instinct on part of FEC's motives on the other. It seems that if you can get a system of some sort started, TOD deals can pay for quite a bit of expansion as long as you're not stuck blasting subway tunnels through downtown.

As to this bit:

"They're going to point to projects like this, to legitimize further upzones in the area," Fox said.

If I had a group of developers willing to throw in for the cost of building/expanding mass transit in exchange for the right to bulk up density in an area, while I would certainly look at the numbers to see if the expansions would significantly offset added traffic needs in the area, my instinct would be to prefer this over simply getting them to pay for dumping asphalt. I might end up pressing for improvements to both the local area and some other part of the system where connectivity would play a role (even if it's simply expanding access to other parts of the line to allow, say, more parking for commuters at outlying stations), this strikes me as being the "right" way to go about this sort of thing.

 

[trainman74]

You think Amazon's going to get 2-day shipping on that streetcar?

 

[fairviewroad]

public compensation for an alley vacation

I think that using "public compensation for an alley vacation" is a good way for a politician to get in trouble really, really fast. :giggle: