Op-Ed: It's Time for Vending in Link Stations
Travel to major cities in most parts of the world, use their transit system, and you’ll find integrated retail. From London and Paris, accommodating small restaurants, grocers, and cafes, to Mexico City, where food carts and other portable stands line the exteriors and interiors of stations, retail and vending is an expectation. Riders can grab a bite to eat, a coffee, or a carton of eggs while waiting for their train or as they head out of the station.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s Link light rail riders are welcomed into stations that are often cavernous and devoid of interaction. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Vending carts could relatively easily fill empty space in stations, with eyes towards more permanent retail down the line.
A Common Cart - an Important Proof of Concept
In 2023, Sound Transit prepared a retail strategy report from 2023 but largely has not pursued the idea — with a few recent exceptions. This spring, I walked into the Capitol Hill Link Station and was delighted to see something surprising — a new small business, called “Common Cart”, serving coffee and Yaupon (a type of Holly tea) to transit riders. Zaiquiri, the owner, explained to me that one of their missions is to fight for more vending in Link stations across the region by proving the business model is both possible to start up and financially viable to keep running.
“My goal was to figure out how to start a cart... [to figure] out what’s the easiest path to get there.” The process to get started wasn’t particularly onerous, Zaiquiri explained, but it required both a fair bit of luck and time.
https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-its-time-for-vending-in-link-stations-2/
I should point out here the Lynnwood Link station has an espresso stand as does the Everett Station. Though the Everett Station
has Sounder and Amtrak trains plus various area transit and private busses instead of the Link.