Amazon grant boosts King County effort to complete key Eastrail segment
Amazon.com Inc. is contributing $7.5 million to help King County complete sections of a 42-mile trail that will connect to four Sound Transit East Link light rail stations, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced Monday.
The funding from Amazon will help overhaul the Wilburton Trestle, a 117-year-old BNSF Railway trestle in Bellevue that's over 100 feet tall and almost 1,000-feet long, as it becomes part of the Eastrail. The total cost of the trestle overhaul is $32 million.
"Amazon's contribution puts us over the top, providing the remaining funds we need to restore and transform the iconic Wilburton Trestle into an elevated trail connected to high-capacity transit," Constantine said in a news release. "The successful partnership to add the century-old trestle to our growing regional trail network shows that we are most effective when we mobilize the efforts of public and private sectors to achieve shared goals."
Of the total investment, $5 million will go toward renovating the trestle, while the rest of it will complete a nearby trail segment. Both are expected to open in 2024, the year after the East Link extension is expected to finish. Eastrail will eventually stretch from Renton to Snohomish County with a spur to Redmond.
Amazon isn't the first company to invest the Eastside's light rail ambitions. REI and Facebook announced in 2020 they would each contribute $1 million to the Eastrail project. Group Health, before it was acquired by Kaiser Permanente, also contributed $500,000 to the project.
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/09/20/amazon-king-county-parks-contribution.html
