RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – When Amazon VIPs tour the Triangle area as part of the multi-billion-dollar, 50,000-job HQ2 project bidding war sweepstakes, those in this region who want it had best pray for two things:

  1. The VIPs don’t arrive during rush hour, which is highlighted daily by the I-40 jam-and-crash derby
  2. The VIPs don’t come during a rainstorm at any time, during which one skid by a texting driver backs up I-40 faster than Super Glue cementing your fingers

For those who don’t want Amazon HQ2 and all the problems it would bring (impact on traffic, pollution, housing prices, urban sprawl … and more), then pray for the above two items to occur. Or another late-winter snow/ice/wintry mix.

The Triangle has a big Achilles’ heel among HQ2 finalists, and transit is it. Proof is what two other bidders offered in the way of moving people – and neither made the final Amazon 20 while RTP advanced.

Details from the bidding battle for HQ2 are emerging as losers such as Kansas City and Cincinnati ($3.1 billion offered) disclose details about their bids. North Carolina’s efforts spearheaded by a Triangle regional task force is keeping mum other than some insight from North Hills developer John Kane on a “Prime” real estate corridor in Raleigh and other minor leaks here and there. Multiple bids from the Triangle were submitted, and Amazon has said it views the Triangle as a finalist, not just Raleigh. But is one bid or a mixture of some/all enough to win?

The other 19 finalists are being just as quiet about their poker hands, although New Jersey reportedly has offered $7 billion in incentives for a project estimated to be worth $5 billion in investment – plus the big payoff, the promised jobs.

North Carolina offered $1.6 billion to Toyota and Mazda in a failed bid for a new plant that promised 4,000 jobs, including 1,500 acres of “free” land, according to WRAL’s Tyler Dukes.

What would the state have to offer to win Amazon?

‘Transit can be built’

Amazon has made clear availability of mass transit is crucial, and as one Triangle source told The Skinny about its bid “Transit can be built.”

Yet one has to ask: Would Amazon be worth the cost?

Kansas City Mayor Sly James doesn’t think so. He told a South by Southwest festival crowd: “I haven’t shed a tear since we did not make the list. It wasn’t something I was worried about one way or the other.”

How far was Missouri willing to go? Offering the idea of Kansas City and St. Louis as a joint bid, the “Show Me” state talked up the possibility of building a hyperloop system. James dismissed the idea.

“Dude, Hyperloop won’t be around for lord knows how long,” James told the crowd. “There wasn’t tension, there was just a different approach.”

Cincinnati, another loser among the 208 that didn’t make the final 20, offered  an “Amazon Prime” transit line that would provide express service to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

“Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber CEO Jill Meyer agreed that transportation improvements were a competitive edge for Columbus, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Columbus offers free bus rides for downtown workers,” Cincinnati’s WCPO reported. “Indianapolis passed a regional transit tax in 2016 to expand bus service. Pittsburgh is a test city for Uber’s driverless rideshare service.”

James, by the way, was joined on that panel discussion by Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane. RTP must also overcome the lingering hangover of House Bill 2 (AKA the “Bathroom Bill”). As The News & Observer reported, McFarlane didn’t see the airplane-towed banner calling for Amazon to avoid picking a site (like the Triangle and Austin) in states where protesting group  “No Gay No Way” says are unfriendly to the LGBTQ community.

North Carolina executives have said that the state is playing to win in the Amazon HQ2 battle. Again, is the prize really worth the cost of billions in incentives as well as who-knows-how-much-more in dollars for transit improvements? There are proponents on both sides of that argument.

One fact is certain, however.

Get as Osprey

Gov. Roy Cooper and regional leaders need to make sure a state helicopter is available – and borrow others as needed from the National Guard or WRAL’s Sky 5 – when the Amazon VIPs come calling (if they haven’t already).

If they really want to dazzle the Jeff Bezos delegation, maybe they can lease an Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft from Special Forces at Fort Bragg or the Marines at Cherry Point.

For Heaven’s sake, don’t put the Bezos crowd in State Police-escorted SUVs. Even they might have trouble on the I-40, I-540 boondoggle that shows the Triangle’s gaping hole in its appeal to Amazon:

The pitiful lack of mass transit.

If the Triangle/North Carolina fail to win Amazon (as the state has in other big projects – auto plants galore), the lack of long-term effective, implemented vision for Triangle transit will likely be a huge factor. Forget the toll road south from I-40. Forget the huge expansion of I-440 on Raleigh’s south side. Neither really helps solve the ongoing 10-mile logjam RTP kerfuffle and its place in the state’s Transportation Improvement Plan: All that traffic from the Triangle and especially the Park’s 50,000 workers funneling in and out of the I-40 tail light show between 7-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. daily (if not longer, morning and evening.)

A Triangle “FastPass+” solution?

The Skinny returned home from Indiana just last week after 6 p.m. hoping to miss an I-40 slow dance.

Fat chance.

Sitting in the queue that moved slower than the people herds at Disney World, a moving blur distracted me from the bumper just ahead.

A regional bus raced past on the shoulder – a long-ago launched effort to get a few vehicles off the road.

What happens when the shoulder is clogged by fender benders?

Alas, the Triangle has no “Fastpass+” like Disney that offers reservations for those who will pay more to skip the long lines.

Could Amazon workers be offered a “Fast Pass” modem and a designated Amazon-only traffic lane on I-40? If so, what does the state say to everyone else, especially those tourists bound for the mountains and the beaches? What about all those other Park workers and the growing number of employees migrating daily to growing job hubs in Downtown Raleigh and Durham?

Have the experts at startup TransLoc (recently acquired by Ford for its apps technology and an experimenter with Uber and GoTriangle to link riders across cars and buses) been included in the discussions and plans?

What, we ask, ingenious solutions have the Triangle task force incorporated (at what cost) into its bid to overcome the mass transit flaw?

A Hyperloop from Raleigh to RDU International Airport to RTP and on to Durham? Light rail? (Haven’t we been down that road before?)

Just last year, government and transportation officials said a light rail and bus mix solution for Wake and Durham Counties would cost $2.3 billion through 2027. Will an Amazon HQ2 bid seek to accelerate that plan?

How about EcoPRT (“ecological personal rapid transit”), the”ultra-light and low-cost transit system featuring autonomous two-person cars that would drive on a guideway railing system” as developed by Marshall Brain and Seth Hollar at N.C. State?

Some leaders in Cincinnati are learning the lesson of failing to win the Amazon HQ2 prize.

“We have lots of ongoing conversations right now about the importance of investing and re-envisioning our transportation system to get more people to work, more people to education and health care,” Cincinnati’s Meyer said. “We’re having those conversations now … but they are a few years ahead of us.”

Ditto the Triangle?

For more about the SXSW panel, read CNN’s report.

For more about Cincinnati’s bid, read The AP story.

For more about why Cincinnati lost, read the WCPO report.