Amazon Belongs in Lake Nona But Hey LYNX is Working on Itself Y'all




***OPINION***

By Mark Baratelli

Updated Sept 16 12:42am

The City of Orlando announced it will "aggressively pursue" getting Amazon to locate its 50,000-job Amazon HQ2 in the city. Amazon is looking at several cities for possible location of the headquarters. The company that will eat the planet invited the City to pitch against other major US cities for the opportunity. If Orlando is chosen, it'll mean thousands of new jobs, a huge influx of cash and spending and tax money (unless Orlando does what it always does and corporate-welfares itself into poverty). 

Lake Nona is the logical spot on which to plop the new Amazon mother ship. It's a huge swath of classy-people housing (they're building Orlando's first micro-apartments) that's soon getting its own massive downtown-ish downtown and a giant crystal clear mega-lagoon. More importantly, Amazon workers can walk, bike and shop all within miles of their job site. This real E.P.C.O.T. will soon Pleasure Island Orlando's rag tag Church Street Station of a city. Anyone up for a Wonus-ville Special? 

Also, the company is requiring bidding cities to contain several positive attributes including “access to rail, train, subway/metro, bus routes.” Womp womp for the land owners located in the rest of Orlando. They're stuck in this car-dependent city wth its deplorably slow bus system and a thing that doesn't connect any major thing to any major thing: Sunrail. But y'all we're getting a nine million dollar bike bridge.

LYNX to the rescue! Back in June LYNX started working on LYNX Forward and today announced there will be three public workshops locals are invited to attend. As part of LYNX Forward, the agency "will be reviewing existing transit services, identifying potential gaps and developing solutions for the community's transportation needs." Info on the three public workshops is below: 

DATE/TIME: Tuesday, Sept. 19, 6-8 p.m.
LOCATION: Casselberry City Hall Commission Chambers
95 Triplet Lake Drive
Casselberry, FL 32707
Location accessible by Lin 103.

DATE/TIME: Wednesday, Sept. 20, 6-8 p.m.
LOCATION: LYNX Central Station 2nd Floor Open Space
455 N. Garland Ave.
Orlando, FL 32801
Location accessible by 35 Links and SunRail.

DATE/TIME: Thursday, Sept. 21, 6-8 p.m.
LOCATION: Kissimmee City Hall Commission Chambers
101 Church St.
Kissimmee, FL 34741
Location accessible by Links 10, 18, 26, 55, 56, 57, 108, 407 and 441.