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Comment by zjaffee | Hacker News Reader

Considering Amazon helped pay for the South Lake Union streetcar, I imagine that this announcement will expedite the approvals for and the construction of the BQX street car.

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Wow so that’s how they got the money for that. Can somebody tell me what the point of those streetcars are? They’re just slow buses that are limited to tracks.

I think this is a misimpression. About half the funding came from various government agencies, and about half from a special assessment on property near the line. The main owner along the corridor was Vulcan (Paul Allen), who rented a lot of space to Amazon, but as far as I know at the time (~2007) Amazon didn't own any property along the line.

Amazon should pay for putting that underground instead.

The BQX shouldn't exist at all. None of the parallel bus lines are anywhere near crowded, and the parallel subway line could easily have the car lengths and train frequency doubled.

Even the city's own, goosed up business case looks poor. The conversation has shifted from "let's fund this with only property taxes" to "let's fund this with public money because this will never pay for itself."

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180830/REAL_ESTATE/1...

>[...] the parallel subway line could easily have the car lengths and train frequency doubled.

What do you mean by car lengths? I thought all nyc subway trains had the same # of cars

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