State, local officials bet on Suffolk Downs in race for Amazon bid

With their pay scales and hours, even tech people will want to be in Lynn or Revere or Chelsea.

That said, I think you are confusing this with the tech facility that they are putting on the Red Line near South Station.

You mean centered working or centered living? There are a ton of high-tech types working in the seaport area these days, but very few living there. The transit is going to be needed from where employees live to Amazon Downs, not from where other people work to Amazon Downs.

I'm sure if people could get a one-seat ride to a job in high tech from somewhere less expensive, they'd move.

Frequently running busses between Wonderland and Lynn Central Square are such an obvious solution, only an organization as clueless as The Ⓣ would fail to implement it.

Right now, there's just a smattering of infrequent bus routes between the two transit hubs, each of which travel circuitous routes to distant Marblehead and Salem. As a result, busses are often delayed and unreliable. Passengers often wait 30 minutes to more than an hour for a bus, and even longer at night or on weekends! When a bus finally does arrive, the demand for service is so great, they're frequently packed beyond capacity.

It makes no sense to send every bus from Wonderland all the way to Marblehead or Salem, when the majority of passengers ride no farther than downtown Lynn. Instead, those routes should simply terminate at Lynn Central Square, where passengers can transfer to the Commuter Rail, or a frequently running bus directly to the Blue Line.

Ideally, service between Wonderland and Lynn should run with the same frequency as the Blue Line, so passengers coming off the train will always find a bus ready to board. At a minimum, no more than two trains of passengers should have to wait for a bus to arrive. This should hold true for weekdays as well as weekends and holidays, when Route-1A is just as likely to be jammed with weekend/holiday/tourist/vacation traffic.

Few would doubt that extending the Blue Line to Lynn or Salem, would alleviate traffic and benefit North Shore communities. Most people are in favor of it, but don't believe it'll ever happen. The next best thing (sigh) is Bus-Rapid-Transit. I have issues with many aspects of the Silver Line Bus-Transit line, but I also think Cybah's new Bus-Rapid-Transit Silver Line to Chelsea will provide much better service for his route, as could a Lynn-Wonderland BRT for that busy corridor.

The pedestrian-hostile Lynnway doesn't really need to be six lanes wide, so an improvement project to add dedicated bus and bicycle lanes would be easy and inexpensive to do. Busses would need to share the four lanes of the Edwards Bridge across the Saugus River, but then at some point, enter an exclusive busway along the MBTA-owned property — the so-called "Narrow Gauge" Right-of-Way, long planned as the route for the Blue Line extension.

The biggest piece of construction would involve the Revere Street bridge over Diamond Creek. It needs to be rebuilt longer, and a little higher, so there's room for the busway to pass underneath, parallel to the creek. That project might also untangle the awkward Ocean Avenue intersection, by simply providing a loop under the bridge for southbound traffic. Being able to bypass the congested intersection of Revere Street and Route-1A would also be the exclusive busway's biggest advantage!

Finally, the busway would need a special terminus at Wonderland Station, elevated above the Blue Line tail tracks, with a loop terminating at Wonderland Plaza. The plaza level is served by elevators and stairs leading to both platforms (and the grand pedestrian bridge to the beach), so it would be the most ideal location for passengers heading in any direction.

All of this would cost a tiny fraction of what it would cost to extend the Blue Line's heavy-rail, electrified, rapid-transit line to Lynn. More importantly, while a Blue Line extension to Lynn is an unlikely-to-happen dream, a Bus-Rapid-Transit extension to Lynn is a realistic alternative. If this is the best you can do, then why not do it?

Meanwhile, regular old busses should be running frequently between Wonderland and Lynn. They wouldn't just serve the needs of current passengers, once there's a reliable way to continue north from the Blue Line, more and more people will find it practical and preferable to driving on Route-1A, spurring even more demand for ultimately upgrading the route to real Bus-Rapid-Transit.

The Ⓣ could do this tomorrow.

Sure. Good length for a covered walkway. Lots of people will use that.

They want a campus to accommodate growth and they want to be in a major city. Are both elements a requirement and does wonderland qualify?

The city is saying it will propose multiple plans. The gov says he want to propose one.

People in Seattle blame Amazon for their housing crisis. I don't know if that is a fair assessment but I'm sure their growth put more stress on that resource and exacerbated gentrification and housing inflation. Will we, as part of the bid process or subsequently, model Amazon-effect on housing costs and displacement in greater Boston?

Amazon wants huge tax abatement and huge public infrastructure investment. And they--GE,Amazon,Olympics--demand it of our elected governments. GreaterBostonians want affordable housing, excellent well-funded public schools and good transportation.

When an Amazon comes along and gets a sweat deal on 100s of millions of infrastructure spending and tax abatement (so that we don't benefit in future with increased revenue for public resources) GreaterBostonians rightly feel f*cked-over by the government they fund and the officials they elected.

We all lose the race to the bottom. We should offer $0 tax abatement and instead offer more infrastructure investment. God knows we need it.

There is no distribution center - HQ2 is mainly for highly skilled tech jobs, execs, and other higher up positions.

CoL is too high? You realize the people we are talking to are flocking to SF/the Valley, and NYC right? It is 100% the jobs - we only have so many entry level positions in tech here with many companies focusing on senior engineers. If you are right out of college getting into a company here is actually competitive, vs in the other cities I mentioned with companies that love right out of college kids.

Might go down if you lived out on the blue line.