Will Amazon bypass the Triangle because of mass transit?
(News and Observer, Wednesday, September 20, 2017)
At first blush, it looks like the Triangle has everything Amazon wants in a place to locate its second headquarters: An educated, high-tech workforce, a good quality of life, a strong local economy and a “stable and business-friendly environment.”
Then you get to the part of its eight-page request for proposalswhere the online retailer says it wants “direct access” to mass transit – “rail, train, subway/metro, bus routes.”
This summer, the Federal Transit Administration approved the start of engineering work on a 17.7-mile light-rail line that will connect Chapel Hill and Durham, the last design phase before learning whether the counties could get 50 percent of the project’s $2.47 billion cost from the federal government. The local money will largely come from vehicle registration fees, car rental fees and a half-cent transit sales tax.
Meanwhile in Wake, voters last fall approved a half-cent sales tax increase to support a $2.3 billion transit plan that includes more frequent bus service, four bus rapid transit lines and commuter rail connecting Garner, Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville and RTP by 2027.
The two plans and the tax increases to pay for them show a commitment to transit, said Joe Milazzo II, executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance, a business group associated with the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.
“I think that makes us very attractive for Amazon and, frankly, for many other companies that want to locate to an innovative market that’s looking to be ahead and at what it needs to do to stay there,” Milazzo said.