---------
Logo Designs by Michael Lawson
Seattle has everything in place to become the next great transit city.
Geography
Seattle geography is ideal. Not unlike San Francisco or other coastal towns it's got those big puddles of water. The various limiting geographic factors make it ideally adaptable for transit.
Bell Cows
Seattle has long been blessed with home-grown companies. Just among the Fortune 500 companies there's Costco, Microsoft, Paccar, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Weyerhaeuser, Expedia and Expeditors International of Washington. If you're not an experienced big rigger then you might not be aware that Paccar sells Peterbilt, Kenworth, DAF & Leyland Trucks. Expeditors is a logistics company.
Every collection of bell cows needs a Lead Dog
Thanks to Amazon, Seattle is now America’s biggest company town
November 30, 2017 By Mike Rosenberg - Seattle Times
Quote:
|
Amazon so dominates Seattle that it has as much office space as the city’s next 40 biggest employers combined. And the growth continues: Amazon’s Seattle footprint of 8.1 million square feet is expected to soar to more than 12 million square feet within five years.
|
I've also read that Amazon is looking at having 10 million SF by the end of 2019; let's go with that number. That is the equivalent of 15 buildings the size of 1144 15th Street. And Amazon is all about being downtown.
Seattle/King Co/Sound transit et al has had their stumbles and bumps over the last decade as any metro area will but two things are notable for me. First they spent a good chunk of money building a tunnel to a key part of town. You know it was money well-spent when ridership climbs 50% within months of opening. Secondly, they went back to the drawing board on the RapidRide routes but the eventual execution and costs have resulted in well functioning routes.
But what really made Seattle the sole Platinum winner?
Any metro the size of Seattle that can convince voters to approve $54 billion in new taxes for future transit investments surely deserves Platinum.