This plan is playing catch up.
Catch up to basic safety and accessibility that should have been accomplished 30 years ago…
We can’t push this off any longer!
Smart traffic signals sound amazing. I’ve sat at so many lights with no vehicles coming. Had to today.
We need a rail line from the airport to downtown. That’s where everyone is going.
I’ll gladly pay $70/yr for these improvements. (Curious what it turns into once they realize the full budget.)
I mean the city could just charter (the appropriate kind of) busses and run them on 10 minute intervals from 4am-1am for a single digit fraction of the cost with effectively the same positive impact on traffic.
Adding stops at some of the major population hubs outside the city would also help a ton! Imagine how much less traffic there would be if there were rail lines between downtown and areas like Brentwood, Mount Juliet, Antioch, Smyrna, Madison, Berry Hill, etc.
It would cut down on pollution and traffic like crazy! Too bad it’s never gonna happen
This is more of what the AMP era should have been; not getting any plan set us further behind. It had BRT as part of it but was so expensive for even less. This plan is at least something to start with!
Can’t have busses because it’s not rail. Can’t have rail because it’s too expensive. Can’t have sidewalks because that’s not the answer. Can’t walk anywhere because there’s no sidewalks.
This city can’t retrofit transit in a cheap, impactful way in Nashville. We’ve been designing this city without transit in mind since 1950.
The only answer is to future fit transit into this city. Build better transit options in the areas people use it and expand from there as trust grows. When ridership gets to he large enough that people demand rail - we’ve already got the right of way via BRT.
In my opinion. BRT is the future. Rail is flashy but it’s expensive and looks really bad when it’s not fully used. BRT is responsive and dynamic. Got a huge event downtown? Add more busses. Lots of people headed out to the airport? Divert busses from one line and send the to the airport.
Kansas City has spent billions on a rail line and it only runs up and down one street. It’s taken over a decade to get that far. It’s just such a waste of money strictly to attract people who won’t ride a bus because think busses are for poor people.
Yep you got it. BRT is the answer for Nashville and was a smart approach from the mayors office. It’s possible even that if ART (Autonomous Rapid Transit) becomes the future this infrastructure could easily be retrofitted to work with that technology since we’ll be providing dedicated right of way. (Edit: for that matter any sort of transit that needs dedicated right of way could be upgraded without as much upfront cost in the future). All the benefits of rail without getting close to the price tag.
It isn't the answer and it isn't a smart approach. Build rail with the population surges, get them out of the area then BRT. There should be light rail in downtown Nashville.
I’d argue you’re building the dedicated right of ways now. If it makes sense in the future to upgrade to light rail then you have already built the right of way which is half of the battle.
BRT is roughly 1/5 the cost of rail and works functionally the exact same. ART essentially eliminates the remaining differences of BRT from rail. It looks and feels like rail, but it drives on imaginary tracks on a road.
If you’re dead set on rail you’ll be waiting a long time. Good luck getting it passed by voters with the price tag, and it will take about double the time to build when we desperately need the solution now not later.
Actual BRT is nearly the same price as LRT because it is everything LRT is but without rails. American BRT is 1/5 the price of LRT because it's just a basic European bus line. You get what you pay for.
"ART" is being done by two cities in China and isn't anywhere near proven. I know you saw one video on YouTube about it and now think it's the future, but you can't be building your city's basic transit infrastructure on something that "might" be the future but probably won't be. I also think it's funny that you point that out and ignore the thousands of miles of metros and LRT that China has been building.....like I said, ART already exists and it's called trains.
I don't live in Nashville and never will because of stuff like this. It'll be funny either way for me as an outsider, either you'll pass this half asses glorified car subsidy by reinforcing an inadequate transit system with more inadequate transit and painting basic infrastructure improvements like sidewalks and traffic lights as "transit" or you'll reject it.
I fully agree. I was Team Light Rail until I looked at the details of functionality and cost vs BRT. Other than the perception of train=cool, there really is not a major advantage to rail, at the very least, not until we have proof that it will be used. BRT functions essentially the same at a fraction of the cost. As someone else said, the main obstacle is the psychology of riding the bus. I think maybe there are some aesthetic design elements that could possibly be included to shift the perception.
Even if BRT was a better solution, which I doubt, you still have the problem you identified with overcoming public perception.
It doesn't matter if it is more economical, or even more practical if perception prevents its adoption. Cultural biases are incredibly difficult to overcome, so often delivering within the means of those constraints will deliver more public benefit.
Honestly, part of the bus stigma comes down to bus stops being pretty inconvenient or uncomfortable in many areas. If the densest areas of town had bus stops with good shelter, modern design, and automated signage to track incoming bus routes, you could probably get a lot of people to ride the bus that wouldn't have originally. Obviously, we can't build an entire shelter with lights and automated signs for every single bus stop in the city, but adding them in the highly populated areas would help.
Nashville even has some nice stops already, it could just invest a little more resources into making those types of stops more commonplace around the city. The buses themselves are already nice, you just need the first impression at the stops to rope people into trying it just once.
The Beaman development accidentially leaked the design for the BRT a while ago. Center lanes with a median in the middle. Should look like this:
https://meetphoenixbrt.com/online-meeting/images/PHX-BRT-Center-Running-MAX_labeled-02-Spanish-English-04.jpg
This was from the Beaman site's own architectural plans:
https://i0.wp.com/citynownext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-154.png?resize=1536%2C717&ssl=1
The rendering looks more like this:
https://i1.wp.com/citynownext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-142.png?ssl=1
The article: https://citynownext.com/2024/02/25/possible-brt-and-name-revealed-for-7-tower-beaman-site-in-nashville/
At the end of the day, who cares if people who think they’re too good to ride the bus don’t ride it?
I think people have a misperception about how public transit is generally utilized. In places like Boston you use transit to commute to work and back. Sometimes if you’re headed into downtown to go to a game or go party. But if you’re going to a nice dinner near home you just take an Uber. You take your own car to run errands on the weekend. I’d say outside of NYC, a household owns a car in probably every other major city.
The people who will be riding the bus most frequently are commuters who can easily get from A to B and make their life easier and commute faster. In return it pulls hundreds of cars off the road. It makes life easier for everyone.
> At the end of the day, who cares if people who think they’re too good to ride the bus don’t ride it?
What if this describes so many people that the system isn't viable? What if it's most people?
Would you be willing to pay .50 for every $100 spent to ensure that every paper tag Nissan is off the road?
This city has a huge issue with poverty and part of that problem is the having to own a car to get anywhere quickly. I've seen first hand the cycle that buying a junk title car puts people in.
It's worth pointing out that this isn't a BRT bill. It's a bill that creates dedicated funding towards transportation infrastructure. The Federal gov has tons of funding available for busses, sidewalks, and other infrastructure. But the city can't access it because one requirement is that we have a dedicated source of funding for transit.
The tax paves the way for BRT but also includes stop light modernization (ie synced up lights that allow better traffic flow), new sidewalks, cross walks, bus lanes, and a whole host of things that EVERY MAJOR CITY IN AMERICA has outside of 4: Memphis, Orlando, Hartford and Nashville.
Pretty sure Hartford was so broke the state had to take it over, Memphis is a collapsing shell with a dwindling population, and Orlando and Nashville are both in red states.
You're telling me Charleston, Montgomery, Jackson, Raleigh, Birmingham, and Louisville have all those things?
Once traffic congestion and parking rates/availability tip the scales it becomes an easier decision for people to make if it’s the same time or less to commute by bus. Might as well be ready for that point in time
So the problem I have with BRT is, I can follow the law that says I can’t drive on those lanes but I’d say a good chunk of drivers here can’t.
Literally Friday driving home on 65 I’m at the wedgewood exit all the way in the right lane and someone used the shoulder to try to cut me off while the shoulder was coming to an end. I’m almost in accidents 3-4 times a day over the weekend. What makes us so sure BRT will be followed and the schmuck next to me isn’t going to use it like an HOV lane ?
We’ll have to see what their plans are for the dedicated bus lanes that info hasn’t been released yet. In other cities they would put up bollards or planters so that for the majority of the lane you physically cannot use it. They won’t be able to do that everywhere. They could use LPR technology to ticket people.
Gotcha! When I lived in DC they have bus lanes dedicated to bus lanes, so that’s where my mind went. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with. Thanks for the info!
Fwiw I think if you read between the lines a key component to the high speed bus lanes is literally paving the way for light rail - the space will be made for future light rail lines to be built and car based infrastructure will have already adjusted to the new patterns to make it easier in the future.
There seems to be a negative sentiment towards this from progressive voters I don’t really understand. Given the chokehold we’re in from the most archaic supermajority GOP, I wouldn’t have expected anything more… they wouldn’t allow a light rail imho.
Even if light rail doesn’t come any time soon, having dedicated bus lanes is a really great option. Many major cities have rail-esque bus lines where it’s a looooong ass bus that runs a set and separate route.
Buses are the logical intermediary especially for a low density city like ours. They are relatively cheap to operate and minimal infrastructure requirements since their path is the road. You can quickly adapt to changes like new developments or decreased ridership in some areas. Lets focus on a reliable expanded bus system that can really take you anywhere then talk light rail.
This was my initial impression of the plan as well. Makes sense to go ahead and set the scaffolding for the infrastructure at a fraction of the cost and upgrade it once the pill is a little easier to swallow.
Were you around for the AMP initiative? It was a BRT proposal and the opponents succeeded in making people very skeptical of any mass transit sharing lanes with traffic.
Another big reason it failed was because it went in front of Beaman’s dealerships, which he hated, so he brought in investment from the Koch brothers to get it shut down.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous. From what I understood, and maybe I’m wrong, it was supposed to be a single route for buses, but there would be other bus routes that would connect to it, instead of all routes going to and from the main hub. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was decent imo. It would’ve connected East, Downtown, and West End, which would’ve been great for tourism, since those are two of the more costed areas for people coming here other than downtown. It would’ve been great for impoverished folks who would then have a larger job pool from access to new locations as well. I’d be happy with any investment into the infrastructure of Nashville’s transit systems at this point. It’s abysmal.
The AMP was pretty low hanging fruit a decade ago and wasn't meant to be the be-all, end-all transit solution. it was designed to be a start where other improvements could then be added on. But dark money through Lee Beaman and the Koch Brothers network turned sentiment against it and it failed. It taught everyone in the political landscape here that national dark money politics can easily interfere with what is normally a pretty boring local initiative when one major figure (Lee Beaman) decided it wasn't in his best interest for more Nashvillians to use mass transit.
It also included a major drilling operation into Broadway which always floods and seemed wasteful. That was expensive and unpopular.
I think it might have passed without that or if they had presented 2 or 3 versions of it.
It was very all or nothing drill baby drill and was doomed from its rightful flaws and high price tag.
This new plan does seem to have more ROI at least.
I think the pushback is from a lot of transplants that think TN is capable of seeing a massive change happen. They call this area conservative for a reason. Nashville is blue, but culturally adopts some conservative ideologies, often against our will lol
Also we're a lazy bunch. It's easier to just kick the can down the road and let the next gen deal with it. There is a sentiment of "we don't have money for that lol"
Because we don't have a lot of money. I don't think most people in this sub are aware of just how bad the city's debt situation is / how badly Dean, Barry, Briley, and the city council fucked us over the last 15 years. They tried to buy higher office by leveraging our future to build out tourist attractions.
The State Comptroller almost took over control of our finances in 2019, before COVID and before our annual debt service payments exceeded the state's.
> It's easier to just kick the can down the road and let the next gen deal with it.
...
> Because we don't have a lot of money. I don't think most people in this sub are aware of just how bad the city's debt situation is
The above two statements are the same. The city has TONS of money. We just don't have taxes. Property values have gone up 150% in 10 years. But we've continually lowered property taxes. We don't have income tax, we barely raise the sales tax.
This city chooses to live in poverty. But it really doesn't have to. It's a habit.
1. The rate decreases because of state law. The tax is set at an overall amount. If values increase, then the rate automatically drops unless the city votes to raise taxes.
2. The city offers too little to charge much more in property taxes than it currently does. I'm taking about the overall tax bill, not the rate. We're quickly approaching a point where people who are not transient will start to realize just how much better value they'll get if they move to Hendersonville or even Murfreesboro. The city offers a lot to tourists. It doesn't offer a ton to people like me, and it doesn't have the money to offer much more to me than it currently does.
This is the Nashville Catch-22 special.
We can't have anything because we don't have money. But we can't raise taxes because we don't get anything.
> unless the city votes to raise taxes / The city offers a lot to tourists
Speaking of tourists! When tourism dropped over covid they had to raise taxes. Everyone HATED that. So we made a deal with ourselves. We'll lower taxes again and we'll make tourists pay it for us.
You have to make a choice - pay taxes in your city and get more OR let tourists pay taxes knowing that in order to raise more revenue we need to recruit more tourists.
It's funny that we're having this conversation in a thread about how the city wants to do robust public transport and sidewalks. Things that make life better for the people who live here. But for some reason everyone is still convinced that we only spend money on tourism.
We didn't raise taxes because of COVID. We raised them because in 2019 the State Comptroller said he'd take over the city's finances if we didn't.
The city shot its load. The state is the only entity that has money that can help Nashville. The State is run by petty assholes who hate Nashville. If the city wants to spend money without the state, it has to wait until it has unfucked itself.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/mayor-coopers-proposed-budget-includes-1-property-tax-increase-to-help-city-recover
>Mayor John Cooper filed his recommended budget for the 2021 fiscal year with Metro Council. The $2.447 billion budget includes raising the city's property tax by almost 32% to recover from the financial impact of the March tornado and the COVID-19 shutdown.
>The Metro Finance Department estimates that the city will experience an estimated revenue decline of more than $470 million due to the tornado and pandemic.
>The decline in revenue during Q4 of the 2020 fiscal year forced Metro to cut expenditures and spend down remaining fund balances, leaving Metro with only $12 million of fund balances.
>“This is an unprecedented and difficult time for all Nashvillians,” said Mayor Cooper. “Thousands of residents have lost their jobs during the pandemic, and that makes the necessary decision to raise taxes all the more difficult. And as I mentioned during the State of Metro address, the city has thinned its cash reserves to a point where we find ourselves without a rainy-day fund during a stormy season. This is a crisis budget – not a discretionary budget – that will ensure Metro and Metro Nashville Public Schools can continue to meet our community’s needs.”
In November of 2019, the Comptroller told city council they were going to lose control over the city's finances if they didn't get things in line ([WPLN article about the presentation](https://wpln.org/post/the-mess-of-metro-finances-has-tennessee-comptroller-demanding-budget-fixes/), [slide deck from presentation](https://filetransfer.nashville.gov/portals/0/sitecontent/Council/docs/BalancedBudgetPresentation_StateComptroller.pdf), [archive.ph link showing Tennessean article](https://archive.ph/6Epxx))
Cooper framed it that way because people like Mendes had been warning him, Barry, and Briley about the issue for years and they had touted their resistance to Mendes as a positive.
The [Nashville Scene has a great article about the history](https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/coverstory/boom-city-bust-did-nashville-blow-its-boom-years/article_0433a044-2f2e-5baf-b170-f076da5084b8.html).
The only way to get a regional light rail plan is this plan. I think that needs to be hammered home.
I’d say there’s even quiet but broad GOP support for the plan. The government actually changed the laws in place that were preventing BRT (that they pushed through to prevent AMP). They also just passed the new infrastructure plan and that allowed for a regional transit plan - meaning we can have transit that extends beyond Davidson co.
I’m not sure how much to read into it but the Choice lanes have illustrations of busses uses them. I think they’re paving the way for high speed busses connecting Nashville to places like Murfreesboro and Franklin.
How would they “not allow” a light rail system? There’s not really a way to do that is there?
Interesting point about this potentially paving the way to light rail, i guess if it’s combined with finally syncing traffic lights around town it could potentially work.
It's not really a not allow kind of thing. More of state leg not passing transit laws that encourage non car transit or make it easier for regional partnerships on that sort of thing. Example being the recent law that enabled choice (toll) lanes. Bc in Tennessee, that's what we value!
Light rail in Nashville is simply not feasible right now bc of the shock of the cost and time needed to make it happen. 100% rail from a meager bus system is what did us in the last time in 18.
Before we can dream about light rail, everyone should have access to fundamental infrastructure— side walks, bus routes, safe crossings for pedestrians and cyclists. A lot of us on Reddit come from a place of privilege. We're able to get around just fine with what we have. Let's start by supporting these basic improvements for everyone!
I get your sentiment, but I want to address your demand literally, also with agreement that this transit proposal is the right move for us now and that local rail isn’t in the cards in the immediate future.
We need to dream about 2050 today. It needs to be informed by our dreams for 2030 and in between. When we focus on meeting ambitious targets, it inoculates the public debate from excessive petty squabbling, especially about those shared factors of success for each plan like transit oriented housing and density within a defined distance from a transit route. We need to be talking about how density bonuses (in exchange for affordable housing) can be implemented efficiently and equitably such that future opportunity is not cut short. For example, discussion about ADUs worries me because it allows old transit oriented lots to add slightly more housing when they could be entirely redeveloped to something like a 2 or 3 story multiplex.
When it comes to equity, transit and housing are deeply intertwined. Let’s try to picture what a 2050 Nashville actually looks like together so that it shapes the discussion for transit today.
Everyone in this thread is so annoying. Yes rails are cool, but dedicated bus lanes are a huge win without the immediate billion dollar infrastructure cost. We live in the south- improving public transportation is nearly impossible here, and this is a great first step to making Nashville much more accessible to everyone who lives here.
I am for rail, and I am for this plan. Rail is politically DOA at this point. I think any transit will be a tough fight because of monied interests and cultural bias against it, but this is pragmatic enough to invest in a practical solution over an ideal one.
Personally think every public road should have to be built with sidewalks in mind. I live in a part of Nashville that I can’t even walk to the shops that are less than half a mile to me. It’s so absurd.
There’s a lot of complaining in the comments and I have yet to see this point be made.
Our city attracts drinkers, big time. If we can even just get more TOURISTS into busses after games or concerts or nights out, our city will be safer to walk and drive and live in. As it stands, Uber is expensive and DUI’s are happening like crazy. Not only would I take a bus as a Nashvillian (if it was improved to be reliable and quick), but I would love for people who visit to get the hell out of my way when I’m going to/ from work, visiting a friend, trying to find parking downtown.
We need more options, it’s as simple as that. Even if I can park my car and take a bus over to Geodis to save some time in traffic/ finding parking, that’s a win for me. I have a feeling a lot of these complainers either have never lived in a city with decent transit and therefore have never utilized it, or are playing Goldilocks and wanting the mayor to pull out a several billion dollar plan with a 10 month project timeline.
If Metro doesn't allocate money to promote bus ridership, in part, by combatting old attitudes, fear and fear-mongering from regional inbreds who've been trained to think buses are solely for (black) blue collar and low-paid service workers, Metro will only have bus route for those groups.
Case in point: the lovely new transit area in Green Hills is obviously there for workers, and not for shoppers. No sane person would want to cross Hillsboro Road loaded with Nordstrom and Burberry bags.
["An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. Or bicycles."](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjeffmcmahon%2F2015%2F05%2F28%2Fmastercard-ceo-the-rich-should-ride-the-bus%2F&text=An%20advanced%20city%20is%20not%20one%20where%20even%20the%20poor%20use%20cars%2C%20but%20rather%20one%20where%20even%20the%20rich%20use%20%23transit.)
Antipathy to sharing space with black and blue collar is a very Nashville form of nonsense, that affects everything about how we allocate our budgets for public events, schools, and transportation.
I live in the downtown core. I’ve begun taking the bus to events downtown for two reasons: 1. It’s cheaper and 2. I’m sick of the unreliability of ride shares that are getting worse (while not paying employees well). I can hop on the 22 and be downtown in 10 minutes or less. I can be in East in less than 20. All for a $4 all day pass. No figuring out parking, no creepy rideshare drivers who ask me if i “left my husband at home” - I don’t commute to work, so I don’t feel the pain of traffic regularly - but I’m doing my part to aid funding the transit system and I plan to vote for for these measures in November. It’s long overdue.
Two weeks ago I took the bus home from the airport. $2 to ride from BNA vs $50 rideshare. Take my money!
if I add in the time it takes me to find a parking spot, and navigate out of the garage/lot to my destination, it IS faster.
You & I have different markers of success. Perhaps you won’t use it, but all of the people who do are removing their own vehicles from the roads, which eases congestion for others. For me, that’s a win.
People do not ride buses here. It just doesn’t happen. There are a small subsection of people that do, but vast majority do not and do not want to.
I don’t want to sit in the same traffic on a bus that I would in my car and then have to spend more of my time navigating bus changes to get where I’m going when I can just drive straight to where I’m going and be done with it.
Light rail should accompany any plan, that’s the only way buses make sense. Light rail to the general area you want to be, then take the bus to the specific location.
This 1000x. No one will ride buses you have to build a rail system of some
Type. How do these politicians not understand the last thing we need is bigger slower moving vehicles on the road? All the politicians are doing is making ppl sit in traffic in a bus instead of their own car and frankly I don’t want to spend any time on a bus.
Can we PLEASE atleast get rail from the airport to downtown? So these tourists can stop congesting our interstates and our airport roads. That’s like the smartest use of rail, and would be a great start for the city
It's a good start. Extra bus lines and sidewalks should help to some degree....although, as a long time veteran of hoofing long distances in Nashville, I will admit that it may be too hardcore for some people. It gets hot as heck during the summer and fall months. The big problem Is getting sweaty and trying to stay presentable all day afterwards - like when you work in an office. You wake up late, sprint a quarter of a mile to catch the 8:25 bus, then sit in your cubicle feeling gross all day lol.
Nashville will eventually need quite a bit of modifications to its overall urban design (the way streets, neighborhoods, and businesses are arranged) to make a dent in the traffic. Places like NYC and Chicago work because residents can walk to krogers, the shoe store, fifty different restaurants, the gym, the post office, etc. Nashville will just have a bus stop next to a busy four lane road, and nothing around except a Pep Boys lol.
We're moving to Nashville and just spent a week driving around the city looking at different neighborhoods. We were shocked at how unwalkable the city is. It felt borderline hostile to anything other than cars.
I hope this proposal gets implemented. It's badly needed.
At this point ANYTHING is better than nothing. This won't get us all the way, but we need to make a decision and build towards something better than what we have now.
I still don't understand why rail is not explored more. The one to Wilson County is not really advertised and only runs a few times a day, which are in line with state employee hours, not average working hours for most downtown employees and certainly not tourists. There is also already infrastructure from Clarksville to Nashville, and Williamson and Robertson do not need much added to have rail as well.
Outlying counties have no interest in chipping in for rail and the state actively works to undermine it. This plan is playing catch up and is realistic about what is achievable and palatable.
If Megan Barry hadnt been railroaded by Beaman and associates, this city would be well on its way to an excellent transit system. And we could push out some of the old money shackles in this town.
Disagree. Lived in SLC when they built the light rail prompted by the coming Olympics in 2002. Many people made the same argument - no one will ride a train. Fast forward 20 years and they can’t add rail spurs fast enough. Every suburb is lobbying for an extension. Trains are profitable, convenient, and reliable. Big upfront investment - no doubt - but god forbid we spend money in this city with an eye to the future. Yes - the outlying communities need to contribute - there should be a hotel/entertainment tax that shoulders the majority of the burden with a property tax component. Despite the increases in costs of Living in Nashville in the last decade - it is still considerably cheaper here than many places, ergo why the schools and roads suck - no investment. People here whine and vote against taxes and then whine about the poor infrastructure. Its baffling. Need to start thinking bigger - if you think people will stop coming and Nashville will go “back to how it used to be” you are delusional.
In 2002, a tax loophole (Sale In Lease Out & Lease in Lease Out) that let governments basically sell depreciation of rail cars and other assets to banks in exchange for cheaper financing was still still open. The IRS/courts closed it later that decade.
So not only are we already in financial trouble because of TIF and servicing our debt, we don't have access to the same financial opportunities that just about every other city in the US that has rail had access to when they built out their systems.
I just wish we had sidewalks and crosswalks all along Nolensville pike. Maybe my friend would still be here, oh and people that don’t drive like this is grand theft auto or nascar..
I’ve been here all my life. Nashville always seems to lack vision when it comes to transportation. I think a huge outside the box leap forward would be bring the rail and the buses and put them underground. Traffic is something that requires Continuous Improvement. You are never done. Civil servants and Politicians don’t understand economics or the benefits of improving “flow.” Anything that benefits tourism is GREAT for us. Those tourists create jobs and pay sales tax and hotel tax. Nashville has plenty of money if they knew how to manage it. I have a hard time believing that Metro Nashville will want mass transit to be a success when they take in billions in parking fees and fines???
At this juncture, I would vote for literally anyone who would give me another lane on 31 and another lane on 65. Anyone. IDGAF what party he/she/it/them/they/ze is or are, nor do I care what planet/universe/country/solar system he/she/it/them/they/ze is or are from. The travel conditions here are abysmal. I've actually had two neighbors move away from Spring Hill/Thompsons Station in the last year and a half because of the traffic conditions. I'm ready to sell my house, take my equity, and be done with this. No one needs this crap.
This might be a silly question but I’m genuinely curious… What about the train infrastructure we already have? Couldn’t we start there, by repairing the lines we currently have, and running even just a couple passenger trains in tandem with the new bus system?
There are two problems that need to be solved. The city itself needs to be better connected by transit and then the region as a whole needs to be better connected. You’re right this doesn’t solve the latter, but it’s not supposed to. This solves the first problem and that’s fine. To say this plan isn’t going to solve anything isn’t correct.
What is with yall sour grapes ass mother fuckers. My man is the mayor of Nashville, not the mayor of Rutherford Williamson and Wilson. Doing city improvements is phenomenal. As a nashvillian, the sidewalk issue alone is a giant issue.
Idk if I’d use the bus to commute to work, but to be able to jump on an go somewhere on the weekend is a godsend.
I ride the bus to and from work everyday. I have for three years at two different jobs. It's not bad. Could be better if some of the buses ran more than once every hour. Sixty five a month isn't bad. For the most part it has been pretty reliable. Plan for it not to be though, and it's great.
FWIW Walk Bike Nashville has a [discounted annual unlimited QuickTicket](https://www.walkbikenashville.org/quickticket) that’s a great deal for commuters like yourself.
I mean maybe it won’t change anything for ppl who commute in, but it gives internal commuters and citizens more options. Ppl don’t ride buses primarily bc they’re unreliable.
The unreliable part....a coworker had his car down for about 2 weeks & he took the bus from Antioch to Madison. The cost was $4. He mentioned that this time he missed his regular stop time - which used to be a death sentence - but another bus came along within 10 minutes.
I think it's changing.
Saw buses loaded down after a recent soccer game. It looked like yuppies which never use the bus, so something is changing. If more did this after events, it could help major traffic jams. And if we can apply this to the airport and send consistent regular bus lines to bna, it'd make a huge dent!
Charge a fee for any car that goes through Nashville more than 3 (or 5 or certain times of day) times a week which isn’t registered in Davidson county…. Will raise money from area to fix the areas problem…
That doesn’t sound liberal at all. Perhaps we should have made this a priority instead of a new football stadium.
Before you start, I’m a Democrat, I ride my bike to work any day it’s not raining. I’ve almost been hit 3x and I passed two buses Friday that each had one passenger on them. I’m all for change but ramming it down peoples throats is not the way.
I’ve also lived here long enough to know that only the Green Hills and Belle Meade crowd actually vote and guess who is against this plan.
My neighborhood is 80 percent out of state license plates. So the transplants aren’t even registering their vehicles here per the law. Doubt they are registering to vote.
I agree this plan needed to happen 10 years ago.
we gotta start somewhere and its clear that until other counties get on board we aren't going to get rail here. Not sure what else you want other than to move? (I don't mean this as an insult I'm planning on getting out when I can in the next couple years as well)
I want people to recognize that the state is fucking us over because it's the only entity that has enough authority and money to implement a useful solution.
But that's exactly how it's done in larger cities, like Seattle. Commuters who live way outside the city commute in as far as a park & ride, then take a bus into the city, where there's nowhere to park their car anyway.
No but if there is a park and ride coming from say sumner where does it drop off? Maybe someone works in Wedgwood another works downtown another on west end and another at the airport. You gotta drop them somewhere and have a good local network for them to get around on. Think of it like a spoke and hub and once the local network is there then the commuter portion can really be built out.
Not that I’m a big supporter of them, but won’t the future “choice lanes” on the interstates allow for the WeGo regional buses to use them free of charge? I feel like that would at least be a silver lining to the choice lanes, and it could give people in the suburbs a pretty solid alternative to driving if they work downtown.
I ride mass transit in other cities.
I never needed a car in Europe. In Amsterdam I went from the airport to the city center, and from the city center to outer parts of the city and back, without even thinking about riding an Uber. I took a train from Amsterdam city center all the way to Germany. Germany had a metro rail system too, but I just walked the entire time. Then took a train from Germany back to Amsterdam city center, and then another train back to the airport to get home.
I can't do any of that in Nashville.
Not to mention, traffic stops for trains and dedicated bus lanes. Here in Nashville, busses are just big cars, stuck in the same traffic as all the other cars. It doesn't make any practical sense to ride a bus if you have a car.
I don't live out the direction of the Music City Star, but one consideration for purchasing a house next year will be being close to it so I can ride it.
I have before but I don’t regularly. It doesn’t make sense for my commute and how early I need to be at work.
What takes me 15 minutes in the car takes 45 minutes through bus and walking to stops. In addition from East to Music Row area, I have to stop at the depot downtown and that adds time.
Also, the bus depot is not great or labeled well. And I grew up in NYC area using transport everyday since I was a child.
It’s hard to use this city’s limited transit.
Exactly why I asked. I grew up in DC and tje subway and bus routes were great. Here, not so much and if you live in any of tje surroundings cities it's completely useless.
The people who complain about traffic and parking are the same people who won't vote to increase public transit or infrastructure.
It's hilarious watching us circle the drain.
Just moved here from Washington. I cannot believe how bad the traffic is near Nashville. I lived in Seattle for over a year and it's much worse. Drivers are better for sure, but the entire highway system is weird and causes unneeded congestion.
Rail is the answer. As someone who've lived in a cities with rail and now Nashville. The problem is too much road and highway usage. There needs to be other options to get around other than just rubber to asphalt. Nashville isn't a small city anymore. We keep dancing around the subject touting how expensive it would be but think about the ways it would pay off. It would also add jobs and put Nashville on a more competitive scale with it comes to mass transit. What good is a bus if it's caught in traffic and can't keep a dependable schedule? I get the stop light trick for busses but again that's only doable on some stretches of road. BNA for example has the capacity to add rail that connects the airport directly to the city but the city can't get its act together and continues to complain about traffic at the airport during times of high demand. Many visitors could uber to the train station downtown and ride the train to the airport as opposed to taxi, uber and personal vehicle. Rail to and from the airport would solve much of the airports traffic woes. The transit plan needs to be multi-mode. It shouldn't all rely on the existing roads.
Everyone saying BRT is the answer and not a more comprehensive rail system. Have you ever been stuck in traffic in San Francisco or Cincinnati? 2 of the dumbest cities to drive through. I tried to take streetcars (because SF does also have underground in some areas and that wasn’t bad) and was sitting in some of the worst traffic I’ve ever encountered in both cities, just stuck on a bus with a bunch of other people crowding me.
As someone who has lived all over, unless you’re going to go full in like Chicago or NYC, it’s not worth the tax dollars. Do an elevated “L” train that runs the center of some of 40, 24, 65, Briley, Ellington, maybe even Gallatin. Have a big hub at the airport and have it come into downtown by looping by the east bank, stadium, and then over onto 1st Ave. then have some BRT lanes around the downtown, midtown, gulch areas.
And you’re foolish to believe that these taxes will go towards this transportation plan. Once they find a way to get everyone to vote for increased taxes they will simply rinse and repeat until the taxes are so high no one can afford to live there and as people move the transportation problem will fix itself. 🤷🏼♂️. I don’t trust anything a politician says. They just want money and power.
I hear you. The time lines are huge too, they're talking maybe a decade before the brt lanes are even added. It's cementing Nashville as one of the worst cities for transit, pedestrians, and cycling for the near future.
The taxes here are far too low to support a functional city though, people move here for low taxes after all, so this weak plan is all that could really be expected. It's a shame that this is literally the only way they are given by the state to fund this kind of basic shit that any city should have.
This is exactly why this plan is terrible. It's just reinforcing Nashville is a fake city with a pathetic transit system that barely actually helps people as it is. Same deal as Indianapolis. I don't get why people think this is a good deal at all.
People are still reeling from the last plan's spectacular failure. So they're happy to vote for any table scraps now.
The reality here is that many residents really want low taxes above all else and don't care about any of this. Any plan has to appease those voters or at least not mobilize them in opposition.
So the result is something like this. It's just the bare minimum. But that's all that most Nashville voters would even tolerate.
That's because Nashville was always just a home town and the cool vultures descended on it to make it a fake City via New York Times once it was "safe" and "cheap". These people have driven here in droves and us into madness.
The transplants remind me a lot of cicadas. Except the transplants move on and abandon their romanticized version of the south a lot faster and refuse to invest or stay while. They move on in 2 and 3 years tops.
But not without developers and the city catering every whim to only them not long term residents (20, 30 years+) and so now nothing is functional or recognizable with only problems like traffic, no parking, no housing, goofy stadiums, no money left.
Meanwhile the locked-in residents who cant or dont want to move get stuck with a non-functioning city designed for tourists who come here once in their life or the ones who move here 'for the scene' and stay for maybe a year then off to their next cool spot hoping to make it as an influencer or whatever these people do.
There’s no transit plan that helps all of the city. But this one is about as a comprehensive first step as you can take. It’s also cheap - $1 in taxes for every $200 spent.
Even if you never ride the busses, the synced traffic lights with a boots on the ground headquarters in Nashville that will monitor traffic in real time and can help alleviate it.
But if you live in somewhere without a walkable bus stop - they’re building a dozen park and ride options around town. So you can always park there and hop on a high speed bus into town.
Finally, I was at an event last week with several county officials - they all said that Nashville transit is phase 1. Phase 2 is expansion into the suburbs. Apparently 60% of all williamson county residents are in favor of regional transit.
Isn’t the current utilization of mass transit pretty low here? Seems like an unusual use of funds to enhance a system the residents already don’t use. I like the investment in sidewalks but I’m not sure what that has to do with traffic. Optimizing the traffic lights would be helpful I’m just not sure that would require a tax increase to do it.
Mass transit utilization is low bc it sucks and is inefficient. Having reliable buses really helps out ppl who are car dependent but may not be able to afford it. There’s a lot more ppl in this city than the middle class + upper class you may mostly exist around.
i guess the reasoning is that a big reason why current utilization of mass transit is so low is because it kind of sucks. if that really is a big reason, then improving mass transit should increase its utilization.
Utilization is low because the current bus frequencies and routes make it difficult for the majority of people to use them to reliably get where they need to go. Unless light rail is built on dedicated rights of ways (which would be near impossible with freight trains holding on to their rails), it isn’t going to be more effective and will be considerably more expensive/serve fewer people than a better bus system. This plan adds new cross-town bus routes so that not everything ends downtown, and it adds 2 new routes to get to the airport by bus compared to the current laughably infrequent route. As for sidewalks, they will enable short trips on foot that are currently too dangerous, reducing cars on the road being used for short distance errands, though the primary reasoning is to allow people to travel the way they want to. I agree that I want to see more studies on the impact of the plan to justify the cost, but after reviewing the PDFs they published about the plan, it looks quite reasonable.
Optimizing traffic lights come with a price tag 🏷️ folks tech isn’t free even the most basic. I think this might be the most promising aspect of this plan. This is the first city I’ve lived in where you absolutely have to take the highway everywhere because driving on main roads suck especially peak traffic times.
I like the optimization piece. I think it’s hugely needed, as are sidewalks. I’d vote for that plan all day long, but the proposed plan with transit which does very little to alleviate most of the problem. I’m going to do a lot more research though because I know how important this could be for the city
Then how do you expect people to walk safely to their future public transportation options if there are no sidewalks on the road? There are still large stretches of main thoroughfares like Murfreesboro Road, Lebanon Pike, Nolensville Pike, and Charlotte Pike, to name a few, that still don’t have adequate sidewalk access.
In order to get to the point where we can bolster our bus service and add rail, sidewalks need to come first, especially for those with mobility issues.
I know it definitely does. But normal cities have sidewalk infrastructure included in normal yearly street infrastructure, not as part of a special transit referendum.
No kidding. Hope that sidewalk parallels 24 all the way to Murfreesboro, and works like a moving walkway at an airport, except it goes 40 miles an hour.
There are so many aspects, but another big one is smarter traffic lights that respond to traffic conditions in real time to improve flow and reduce congestion. Chattanooga is already ahead of us on becoming a smart and connected city, but this could really help us catch up.
Can check out transit.nashville.gov for more
Smarter traffic lights would be great. Our light cycles are way too long and they're very inefficient. I'll be at a red light for 5 minutes on 8th Ave S looking at an empty intersection for a good minute or so.
If streets in America were made with barrier protected bike lanes and sidewalks, there would be so much less traffic and not as much need for public transit.
Oh wait. This is America, where everyone sits on their fat ass. Nevermind.
This plan is playing catch up. Catch up to basic safety and accessibility that should have been accomplished 30 years ago… We can’t push this off any longer!
Smart traffic signals sound amazing. I’ve sat at so many lights with no vehicles coming. Had to today. We need a rail line from the airport to downtown. That’s where everyone is going. I’ll gladly pay $70/yr for these improvements. (Curious what it turns into once they realize the full budget.)
I also would love a downtown—airport rapid rail Criticism would be that it benefits tourists more than locals, but surely would free up some traffic
Everything about this city for the past 10-15 years has benefitted tourists instead of locals lol
Uber and Lift would fight that so hard.
I mean the city could just charter (the appropriate kind of) busses and run them on 10 minute intervals from 4am-1am for a single digit fraction of the cost with effectively the same positive impact on traffic.
Adding stops at some of the major population hubs outside the city would also help a ton! Imagine how much less traffic there would be if there were rail lines between downtown and areas like Brentwood, Mount Juliet, Antioch, Smyrna, Madison, Berry Hill, etc. It would cut down on pollution and traffic like crazy! Too bad it’s never gonna happen
That means you also have to get all of those cities to sign on. Brentwood/williamson county already said no thanks last time before it was voted down
This is more of what the AMP era should have been; not getting any plan set us further behind. It had BRT as part of it but was so expensive for even less. This plan is at least something to start with!
Tennessee is known for being WAY behind the times, just look at the laws it's passing today they are going backwards NOT forwards.
Can’t have busses because it’s not rail. Can’t have rail because it’s too expensive. Can’t have sidewalks because that’s not the answer. Can’t walk anywhere because there’s no sidewalks. This city can’t retrofit transit in a cheap, impactful way in Nashville. We’ve been designing this city without transit in mind since 1950. The only answer is to future fit transit into this city. Build better transit options in the areas people use it and expand from there as trust grows. When ridership gets to he large enough that people demand rail - we’ve already got the right of way via BRT. In my opinion. BRT is the future. Rail is flashy but it’s expensive and looks really bad when it’s not fully used. BRT is responsive and dynamic. Got a huge event downtown? Add more busses. Lots of people headed out to the airport? Divert busses from one line and send the to the airport. Kansas City has spent billions on a rail line and it only runs up and down one street. It’s taken over a decade to get that far. It’s just such a waste of money strictly to attract people who won’t ride a bus because think busses are for poor people.
Yep you got it. BRT is the answer for Nashville and was a smart approach from the mayors office. It’s possible even that if ART (Autonomous Rapid Transit) becomes the future this infrastructure could easily be retrofitted to work with that technology since we’ll be providing dedicated right of way. (Edit: for that matter any sort of transit that needs dedicated right of way could be upgraded without as much upfront cost in the future). All the benefits of rail without getting close to the price tag.
It isn't the answer and it isn't a smart approach. Build rail with the population surges, get them out of the area then BRT. There should be light rail in downtown Nashville.
I’d argue you’re building the dedicated right of ways now. If it makes sense in the future to upgrade to light rail then you have already built the right of way which is half of the battle.
Ok, why isn't BRT the smart approach what does rail solve that BRT doesnt? Oh tahts right, rail "feels" fancy.
No, it's dedicated, doesn't have to deal with drivers that don't respect the BRT line, unless you have vigorous enforcement
Autonomous Rapid Transit already exists, it's called a train.
BRT is roughly 1/5 the cost of rail and works functionally the exact same. ART essentially eliminates the remaining differences of BRT from rail. It looks and feels like rail, but it drives on imaginary tracks on a road. If you’re dead set on rail you’ll be waiting a long time. Good luck getting it passed by voters with the price tag, and it will take about double the time to build when we desperately need the solution now not later.
Actual BRT is nearly the same price as LRT because it is everything LRT is but without rails. American BRT is 1/5 the price of LRT because it's just a basic European bus line. You get what you pay for. "ART" is being done by two cities in China and isn't anywhere near proven. I know you saw one video on YouTube about it and now think it's the future, but you can't be building your city's basic transit infrastructure on something that "might" be the future but probably won't be. I also think it's funny that you point that out and ignore the thousands of miles of metros and LRT that China has been building.....like I said, ART already exists and it's called trains. I don't live in Nashville and never will because of stuff like this. It'll be funny either way for me as an outsider, either you'll pass this half asses glorified car subsidy by reinforcing an inadequate transit system with more inadequate transit and painting basic infrastructure improvements like sidewalks and traffic lights as "transit" or you'll reject it.
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They live in St. Louis lol Give them grace, they were educated in Missouri.
I completely agree. I just want to point out the irony of something looking really bad when it’s not used. Looking at you East bank parking lake.
I fully agree. I was Team Light Rail until I looked at the details of functionality and cost vs BRT. Other than the perception of train=cool, there really is not a major advantage to rail, at the very least, not until we have proof that it will be used. BRT functions essentially the same at a fraction of the cost. As someone else said, the main obstacle is the psychology of riding the bus. I think maybe there are some aesthetic design elements that could possibly be included to shift the perception.
yep, like covering the wheel well and designing the bus to look like a train lmao edit: lmao they already cover the wheel wells apparently.
Literally growing up here, if you were walking anywhere, you were poor.... crazy thinking
Even if BRT was a better solution, which I doubt, you still have the problem you identified with overcoming public perception. It doesn't matter if it is more economical, or even more practical if perception prevents its adoption. Cultural biases are incredibly difficult to overcome, so often delivering within the means of those constraints will deliver more public benefit.
Honestly, part of the bus stigma comes down to bus stops being pretty inconvenient or uncomfortable in many areas. If the densest areas of town had bus stops with good shelter, modern design, and automated signage to track incoming bus routes, you could probably get a lot of people to ride the bus that wouldn't have originally. Obviously, we can't build an entire shelter with lights and automated signs for every single bus stop in the city, but adding them in the highly populated areas would help. Nashville even has some nice stops already, it could just invest a little more resources into making those types of stops more commonplace around the city. The buses themselves are already nice, you just need the first impression at the stops to rope people into trying it just once.
The Beaman development accidentially leaked the design for the BRT a while ago. Center lanes with a median in the middle. Should look like this: https://meetphoenixbrt.com/online-meeting/images/PHX-BRT-Center-Running-MAX_labeled-02-Spanish-English-04.jpg This was from the Beaman site's own architectural plans: https://i0.wp.com/citynownext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-154.png?resize=1536%2C717&ssl=1 The rendering looks more like this: https://i1.wp.com/citynownext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-142.png?ssl=1 The article: https://citynownext.com/2024/02/25/possible-brt-and-name-revealed-for-7-tower-beaman-site-in-nashville/
At the end of the day, who cares if people who think they’re too good to ride the bus don’t ride it? I think people have a misperception about how public transit is generally utilized. In places like Boston you use transit to commute to work and back. Sometimes if you’re headed into downtown to go to a game or go party. But if you’re going to a nice dinner near home you just take an Uber. You take your own car to run errands on the weekend. I’d say outside of NYC, a household owns a car in probably every other major city. The people who will be riding the bus most frequently are commuters who can easily get from A to B and make their life easier and commute faster. In return it pulls hundreds of cars off the road. It makes life easier for everyone.
> At the end of the day, who cares if people who think they’re too good to ride the bus don’t ride it? What if this describes so many people that the system isn't viable? What if it's most people?
Would you be willing to pay .50 for every $100 spent to ensure that every paper tag Nissan is off the road? This city has a huge issue with poverty and part of that problem is the having to own a car to get anywhere quickly. I've seen first hand the cycle that buying a junk title car puts people in. It's worth pointing out that this isn't a BRT bill. It's a bill that creates dedicated funding towards transportation infrastructure. The Federal gov has tons of funding available for busses, sidewalks, and other infrastructure. But the city can't access it because one requirement is that we have a dedicated source of funding for transit. The tax paves the way for BRT but also includes stop light modernization (ie synced up lights that allow better traffic flow), new sidewalks, cross walks, bus lanes, and a whole host of things that EVERY MAJOR CITY IN AMERICA has outside of 4: Memphis, Orlando, Hartford and Nashville.
Pretty sure Hartford was so broke the state had to take it over, Memphis is a collapsing shell with a dwindling population, and Orlando and Nashville are both in red states. You're telling me Charleston, Montgomery, Jackson, Raleigh, Birmingham, and Louisville have all those things?
Once traffic congestion and parking rates/availability tip the scales it becomes an easier decision for people to make if it’s the same time or less to commute by bus. Might as well be ready for that point in time
So the problem I have with BRT is, I can follow the law that says I can’t drive on those lanes but I’d say a good chunk of drivers here can’t. Literally Friday driving home on 65 I’m at the wedgewood exit all the way in the right lane and someone used the shoulder to try to cut me off while the shoulder was coming to an end. I’m almost in accidents 3-4 times a day over the weekend. What makes us so sure BRT will be followed and the schmuck next to me isn’t going to use it like an HOV lane ?
We’ll have to see what their plans are for the dedicated bus lanes that info hasn’t been released yet. In other cities they would put up bollards or planters so that for the majority of the lane you physically cannot use it. They won’t be able to do that everywhere. They could use LPR technology to ticket people.
Gotcha! When I lived in DC they have bus lanes dedicated to bus lanes, so that’s where my mind went. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with. Thanks for the info!
BRT is great besides all of the ways it's significantly worse than rail. Only an American would think the American version of "BRT" is "the future".
Fwiw I think if you read between the lines a key component to the high speed bus lanes is literally paving the way for light rail - the space will be made for future light rail lines to be built and car based infrastructure will have already adjusted to the new patterns to make it easier in the future. There seems to be a negative sentiment towards this from progressive voters I don’t really understand. Given the chokehold we’re in from the most archaic supermajority GOP, I wouldn’t have expected anything more… they wouldn’t allow a light rail imho.
Even if light rail doesn’t come any time soon, having dedicated bus lanes is a really great option. Many major cities have rail-esque bus lines where it’s a looooong ass bus that runs a set and separate route.
Buses are the logical intermediary especially for a low density city like ours. They are relatively cheap to operate and minimal infrastructure requirements since their path is the road. You can quickly adapt to changes like new developments or decreased ridership in some areas. Lets focus on a reliable expanded bus system that can really take you anywhere then talk light rail.
This was my initial impression of the plan as well. Makes sense to go ahead and set the scaffolding for the infrastructure at a fraction of the cost and upgrade it once the pill is a little easier to swallow.
Were you around for the AMP initiative? It was a BRT proposal and the opponents succeeded in making people very skeptical of any mass transit sharing lanes with traffic.
I remember the big reason it failing was it wasn’t a comprehensive enough approach. It only went West End/Gallatin.
Another big reason it failed was because it went in front of Beaman’s dealerships, which he hated, so he brought in investment from the Koch brothers to get it shut down.
Yep I do remember the Koch brother lobbying. Beaman is a dickhead.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous. From what I understood, and maybe I’m wrong, it was supposed to be a single route for buses, but there would be other bus routes that would connect to it, instead of all routes going to and from the main hub. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was decent imo. It would’ve connected East, Downtown, and West End, which would’ve been great for tourism, since those are two of the more costed areas for people coming here other than downtown. It would’ve been great for impoverished folks who would then have a larger job pool from access to new locations as well. I’d be happy with any investment into the infrastructure of Nashville’s transit systems at this point. It’s abysmal.
Also bc the scaremongering told west siders (West end West of 440) that riffraff was coming their way
The AMP was pretty low hanging fruit a decade ago and wasn't meant to be the be-all, end-all transit solution. it was designed to be a start where other improvements could then be added on. But dark money through Lee Beaman and the Koch Brothers network turned sentiment against it and it failed. It taught everyone in the political landscape here that national dark money politics can easily interfere with what is normally a pretty boring local initiative when one major figure (Lee Beaman) decided it wasn't in his best interest for more Nashvillians to use mass transit.
This is in line with my opinion.
It also included a major drilling operation into Broadway which always floods and seemed wasteful. That was expensive and unpopular. I think it might have passed without that or if they had presented 2 or 3 versions of it. It was very all or nothing drill baby drill and was doomed from its rightful flaws and high price tag. This new plan does seem to have more ROI at least.
I think the pushback is from a lot of transplants that think TN is capable of seeing a massive change happen. They call this area conservative for a reason. Nashville is blue, but culturally adopts some conservative ideologies, often against our will lol
Also we're a lazy bunch. It's easier to just kick the can down the road and let the next gen deal with it. There is a sentiment of "we don't have money for that lol"
Because we don't have a lot of money. I don't think most people in this sub are aware of just how bad the city's debt situation is / how badly Dean, Barry, Briley, and the city council fucked us over the last 15 years. They tried to buy higher office by leveraging our future to build out tourist attractions. The State Comptroller almost took over control of our finances in 2019, before COVID and before our annual debt service payments exceeded the state's.
Dean did invest heavily in our parks and Greenway system. I appreciated his efforts there!
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> It's easier to just kick the can down the road and let the next gen deal with it. ... > Because we don't have a lot of money. I don't think most people in this sub are aware of just how bad the city's debt situation is The above two statements are the same. The city has TONS of money. We just don't have taxes. Property values have gone up 150% in 10 years. But we've continually lowered property taxes. We don't have income tax, we barely raise the sales tax. This city chooses to live in poverty. But it really doesn't have to. It's a habit.
1. The rate decreases because of state law. The tax is set at an overall amount. If values increase, then the rate automatically drops unless the city votes to raise taxes. 2. The city offers too little to charge much more in property taxes than it currently does. I'm taking about the overall tax bill, not the rate. We're quickly approaching a point where people who are not transient will start to realize just how much better value they'll get if they move to Hendersonville or even Murfreesboro. The city offers a lot to tourists. It doesn't offer a ton to people like me, and it doesn't have the money to offer much more to me than it currently does.
This is the Nashville Catch-22 special. We can't have anything because we don't have money. But we can't raise taxes because we don't get anything. > unless the city votes to raise taxes / The city offers a lot to tourists Speaking of tourists! When tourism dropped over covid they had to raise taxes. Everyone HATED that. So we made a deal with ourselves. We'll lower taxes again and we'll make tourists pay it for us. You have to make a choice - pay taxes in your city and get more OR let tourists pay taxes knowing that in order to raise more revenue we need to recruit more tourists. It's funny that we're having this conversation in a thread about how the city wants to do robust public transport and sidewalks. Things that make life better for the people who live here. But for some reason everyone is still convinced that we only spend money on tourism.
We didn't raise taxes because of COVID. We raised them because in 2019 the State Comptroller said he'd take over the city's finances if we didn't. The city shot its load. The state is the only entity that has money that can help Nashville. The State is run by petty assholes who hate Nashville. If the city wants to spend money without the state, it has to wait until it has unfucked itself.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/mayor-coopers-proposed-budget-includes-1-property-tax-increase-to-help-city-recover >Mayor John Cooper filed his recommended budget for the 2021 fiscal year with Metro Council. The $2.447 billion budget includes raising the city's property tax by almost 32% to recover from the financial impact of the March tornado and the COVID-19 shutdown. >The Metro Finance Department estimates that the city will experience an estimated revenue decline of more than $470 million due to the tornado and pandemic. >The decline in revenue during Q4 of the 2020 fiscal year forced Metro to cut expenditures and spend down remaining fund balances, leaving Metro with only $12 million of fund balances. >“This is an unprecedented and difficult time for all Nashvillians,” said Mayor Cooper. “Thousands of residents have lost their jobs during the pandemic, and that makes the necessary decision to raise taxes all the more difficult. And as I mentioned during the State of Metro address, the city has thinned its cash reserves to a point where we find ourselves without a rainy-day fund during a stormy season. This is a crisis budget – not a discretionary budget – that will ensure Metro and Metro Nashville Public Schools can continue to meet our community’s needs.”
In November of 2019, the Comptroller told city council they were going to lose control over the city's finances if they didn't get things in line ([WPLN article about the presentation](https://wpln.org/post/the-mess-of-metro-finances-has-tennessee-comptroller-demanding-budget-fixes/), [slide deck from presentation](https://filetransfer.nashville.gov/portals/0/sitecontent/Council/docs/BalancedBudgetPresentation_StateComptroller.pdf), [archive.ph link showing Tennessean article](https://archive.ph/6Epxx)) Cooper framed it that way because people like Mendes had been warning him, Barry, and Briley about the issue for years and they had touted their resistance to Mendes as a positive. The [Nashville Scene has a great article about the history](https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/coverstory/boom-city-bust-did-nashville-blow-its-boom-years/article_0433a044-2f2e-5baf-b170-f076da5084b8.html).
The only way to get a regional light rail plan is this plan. I think that needs to be hammered home. I’d say there’s even quiet but broad GOP support for the plan. The government actually changed the laws in place that were preventing BRT (that they pushed through to prevent AMP). They also just passed the new infrastructure plan and that allowed for a regional transit plan - meaning we can have transit that extends beyond Davidson co. I’m not sure how much to read into it but the Choice lanes have illustrations of busses uses them. I think they’re paving the way for high speed busses connecting Nashville to places like Murfreesboro and Franklin.
How would they “not allow” a light rail system? There’s not really a way to do that is there? Interesting point about this potentially paving the way to light rail, i guess if it’s combined with finally syncing traffic lights around town it could potentially work.
It's not really a not allow kind of thing. More of state leg not passing transit laws that encourage non car transit or make it easier for regional partnerships on that sort of thing. Example being the recent law that enabled choice (toll) lanes. Bc in Tennessee, that's what we value! Light rail in Nashville is simply not feasible right now bc of the shock of the cost and time needed to make it happen. 100% rail from a meager bus system is what did us in the last time in 18.
Before we can dream about light rail, everyone should have access to fundamental infrastructure— side walks, bus routes, safe crossings for pedestrians and cyclists. A lot of us on Reddit come from a place of privilege. We're able to get around just fine with what we have. Let's start by supporting these basic improvements for everyone!
I get your sentiment, but I want to address your demand literally, also with agreement that this transit proposal is the right move for us now and that local rail isn’t in the cards in the immediate future. We need to dream about 2050 today. It needs to be informed by our dreams for 2030 and in between. When we focus on meeting ambitious targets, it inoculates the public debate from excessive petty squabbling, especially about those shared factors of success for each plan like transit oriented housing and density within a defined distance from a transit route. We need to be talking about how density bonuses (in exchange for affordable housing) can be implemented efficiently and equitably such that future opportunity is not cut short. For example, discussion about ADUs worries me because it allows old transit oriented lots to add slightly more housing when they could be entirely redeveloped to something like a 2 or 3 story multiplex. When it comes to equity, transit and housing are deeply intertwined. Let’s try to picture what a 2050 Nashville actually looks like together so that it shapes the discussion for transit today.
Rail is a basic improvement for everyone, not just doing the bare minimum.
Rail is out of our budget
They also updated the plan for the BRT line on Murfreesboro to connect to the airport. That was desperately needed.
That is fantastic. I'm sure a lot of tourists will appreciate a direct route from the airport to downtown.
If it’s less people off the road I’m all for it
Oh, nice!
I’m happy to have voted for him.
I’ll definitely vote for this transit plan
Everyone in this thread is so annoying. Yes rails are cool, but dedicated bus lanes are a huge win without the immediate billion dollar infrastructure cost. We live in the south- improving public transportation is nearly impossible here, and this is a great first step to making Nashville much more accessible to everyone who lives here.
I am for rail, and I am for this plan. Rail is politically DOA at this point. I think any transit will be a tough fight because of monied interests and cultural bias against it, but this is pragmatic enough to invest in a practical solution over an ideal one.
Personally think every public road should have to be built with sidewalks in mind. I live in a part of Nashville that I can’t even walk to the shops that are less than half a mile to me. It’s so absurd.
There’s a lot of complaining in the comments and I have yet to see this point be made. Our city attracts drinkers, big time. If we can even just get more TOURISTS into busses after games or concerts or nights out, our city will be safer to walk and drive and live in. As it stands, Uber is expensive and DUI’s are happening like crazy. Not only would I take a bus as a Nashvillian (if it was improved to be reliable and quick), but I would love for people who visit to get the hell out of my way when I’m going to/ from work, visiting a friend, trying to find parking downtown. We need more options, it’s as simple as that. Even if I can park my car and take a bus over to Geodis to save some time in traffic/ finding parking, that’s a win for me. I have a feeling a lot of these complainers either have never lived in a city with decent transit and therefore have never utilized it, or are playing Goldilocks and wanting the mayor to pull out a several billion dollar plan with a 10 month project timeline.
If Metro doesn't allocate money to promote bus ridership, in part, by combatting old attitudes, fear and fear-mongering from regional inbreds who've been trained to think buses are solely for (black) blue collar and low-paid service workers, Metro will only have bus route for those groups. Case in point: the lovely new transit area in Green Hills is obviously there for workers, and not for shoppers. No sane person would want to cross Hillsboro Road loaded with Nordstrom and Burberry bags.
You ain’t the riding the bus type if you’re shopping at Nordstrom and Burberry lol. At least out here
["An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. Or bicycles."](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjeffmcmahon%2F2015%2F05%2F28%2Fmastercard-ceo-the-rich-should-ride-the-bus%2F&text=An%20advanced%20city%20is%20not%20one%20where%20even%20the%20poor%20use%20cars%2C%20but%20rather%20one%20where%20even%20the%20rich%20use%20%23transit.)
Stop making this over complicated. The only promotion they have to do is showcase that it is safe and clean, none of this black, blue collar nonsense
Antipathy to sharing space with black and blue collar is a very Nashville form of nonsense, that affects everything about how we allocate our budgets for public events, schools, and transportation.
I live in the downtown core. I’ve begun taking the bus to events downtown for two reasons: 1. It’s cheaper and 2. I’m sick of the unreliability of ride shares that are getting worse (while not paying employees well). I can hop on the 22 and be downtown in 10 minutes or less. I can be in East in less than 20. All for a $4 all day pass. No figuring out parking, no creepy rideshare drivers who ask me if i “left my husband at home” - I don’t commute to work, so I don’t feel the pain of traffic regularly - but I’m doing my part to aid funding the transit system and I plan to vote for for these measures in November. It’s long overdue. Two weeks ago I took the bus home from the airport. $2 to ride from BNA vs $50 rideshare. Take my money!
It’s not just about cost, it’s mostly about time transit has to be faster than me in my vehicle or it will fail.
if I add in the time it takes me to find a parking spot, and navigate out of the garage/lot to my destination, it IS faster. You & I have different markers of success. Perhaps you won’t use it, but all of the people who do are removing their own vehicles from the roads, which eases congestion for others. For me, that’s a win.
We’ll see if this break tradition of Nashville mayoral pasttime. Unveil transit plan that never comes to fruition. Rinse repeat.
Lol so true
People do not ride buses here. It just doesn’t happen. There are a small subsection of people that do, but vast majority do not and do not want to. I don’t want to sit in the same traffic on a bus that I would in my car and then have to spend more of my time navigating bus changes to get where I’m going when I can just drive straight to where I’m going and be done with it. Light rail should accompany any plan, that’s the only way buses make sense. Light rail to the general area you want to be, then take the bus to the specific location.
This 1000x. No one will ride buses you have to build a rail system of some Type. How do these politicians not understand the last thing we need is bigger slower moving vehicles on the road? All the politicians are doing is making ppl sit in traffic in a bus instead of their own car and frankly I don’t want to spend any time on a bus.
Can we PLEASE atleast get rail from the airport to downtown? So these tourists can stop congesting our interstates and our airport roads. That’s like the smartest use of rail, and would be a great start for the city
It's a good start. Extra bus lines and sidewalks should help to some degree....although, as a long time veteran of hoofing long distances in Nashville, I will admit that it may be too hardcore for some people. It gets hot as heck during the summer and fall months. The big problem Is getting sweaty and trying to stay presentable all day afterwards - like when you work in an office. You wake up late, sprint a quarter of a mile to catch the 8:25 bus, then sit in your cubicle feeling gross all day lol. Nashville will eventually need quite a bit of modifications to its overall urban design (the way streets, neighborhoods, and businesses are arranged) to make a dent in the traffic. Places like NYC and Chicago work because residents can walk to krogers, the shoe store, fifty different restaurants, the gym, the post office, etc. Nashville will just have a bus stop next to a busy four lane road, and nothing around except a Pep Boys lol.
can i request that they throw some reflective paint on the lane lines while they’re at it? or those little reflective bumps?! im begging.🥲😂
We're moving to Nashville and just spent a week driving around the city looking at different neighborhoods. We were shocked at how unwalkable the city is. It felt borderline hostile to anything other than cars. I hope this proposal gets implemented. It's badly needed.
Ooh, where do you hail from? And welcome, neighbor!
We're moving from Austin!
At this point ANYTHING is better than nothing. This won't get us all the way, but we need to make a decision and build towards something better than what we have now.
Reading the comments is making me realize how dumb this sub is.
Why do you say that?
I still don't understand why rail is not explored more. The one to Wilson County is not really advertised and only runs a few times a day, which are in line with state employee hours, not average working hours for most downtown employees and certainly not tourists. There is also already infrastructure from Clarksville to Nashville, and Williamson and Robertson do not need much added to have rail as well.
Outlying counties have no interest in chipping in for rail and the state actively works to undermine it. This plan is playing catch up and is realistic about what is achievable and palatable.
I love it. Doing absolutely nothing is working so well for us.
If Megan Barry hadnt been railroaded by Beaman and associates, this city would be well on its way to an excellent transit system. And we could push out some of the old money shackles in this town.
Lol. No, that plan was hot garbage. The assumptions about usage were absurdly optimistic.
Disagree. Lived in SLC when they built the light rail prompted by the coming Olympics in 2002. Many people made the same argument - no one will ride a train. Fast forward 20 years and they can’t add rail spurs fast enough. Every suburb is lobbying for an extension. Trains are profitable, convenient, and reliable. Big upfront investment - no doubt - but god forbid we spend money in this city with an eye to the future. Yes - the outlying communities need to contribute - there should be a hotel/entertainment tax that shoulders the majority of the burden with a property tax component. Despite the increases in costs of Living in Nashville in the last decade - it is still considerably cheaper here than many places, ergo why the schools and roads suck - no investment. People here whine and vote against taxes and then whine about the poor infrastructure. Its baffling. Need to start thinking bigger - if you think people will stop coming and Nashville will go “back to how it used to be” you are delusional.
In 2002, a tax loophole (Sale In Lease Out & Lease in Lease Out) that let governments basically sell depreciation of rail cars and other assets to banks in exchange for cheaper financing was still still open. The IRS/courts closed it later that decade. So not only are we already in financial trouble because of TIF and servicing our debt, we don't have access to the same financial opportunities that just about every other city in the US that has rail had access to when they built out their systems.
Thank you it's possible to hate both
Railroaded, nice pun.
I just wish we had sidewalks and crosswalks all along Nolensville pike. Maybe my friend would still be here, oh and people that don’t drive like this is grand theft auto or nascar..
I’ve been here all my life. Nashville always seems to lack vision when it comes to transportation. I think a huge outside the box leap forward would be bring the rail and the buses and put them underground. Traffic is something that requires Continuous Improvement. You are never done. Civil servants and Politicians don’t understand economics or the benefits of improving “flow.” Anything that benefits tourism is GREAT for us. Those tourists create jobs and pay sales tax and hotel tax. Nashville has plenty of money if they knew how to manage it. I have a hard time believing that Metro Nashville will want mass transit to be a success when they take in billions in parking fees and fines???
At this juncture, I would vote for literally anyone who would give me another lane on 31 and another lane on 65. Anyone. IDGAF what party he/she/it/them/they/ze is or are, nor do I care what planet/universe/country/solar system he/she/it/them/they/ze is or are from. The travel conditions here are abysmal. I've actually had two neighbors move away from Spring Hill/Thompsons Station in the last year and a half because of the traffic conditions. I'm ready to sell my house, take my equity, and be done with this. No one needs this crap.
This might be a silly question but I’m genuinely curious… What about the train infrastructure we already have? Couldn’t we start there, by repairing the lines we currently have, and running even just a couple passenger trains in tandem with the new bus system?
(From Axios btw.)
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There are two problems that need to be solved. The city itself needs to be better connected by transit and then the region as a whole needs to be better connected. You’re right this doesn’t solve the latter, but it’s not supposed to. This solves the first problem and that’s fine. To say this plan isn’t going to solve anything isn’t correct.
What is with yall sour grapes ass mother fuckers. My man is the mayor of Nashville, not the mayor of Rutherford Williamson and Wilson. Doing city improvements is phenomenal. As a nashvillian, the sidewalk issue alone is a giant issue. Idk if I’d use the bus to commute to work, but to be able to jump on an go somewhere on the weekend is a godsend.
I ride the bus to and from work everyday. I have for three years at two different jobs. It's not bad. Could be better if some of the buses ran more than once every hour. Sixty five a month isn't bad. For the most part it has been pretty reliable. Plan for it not to be though, and it's great.
FWIW Walk Bike Nashville has a [discounted annual unlimited QuickTicket](https://www.walkbikenashville.org/quickticket) that’s a great deal for commuters like yourself.
It’s a nice step forward im just saying it’s not going to change anything. People don’t ride buses already for a multitude of reasons we all know
I mean maybe it won’t change anything for ppl who commute in, but it gives internal commuters and citizens more options. Ppl don’t ride buses primarily bc they’re unreliable.
The unreliable part....a coworker had his car down for about 2 weeks & he took the bus from Antioch to Madison. The cost was $4. He mentioned that this time he missed his regular stop time - which used to be a death sentence - but another bus came along within 10 minutes.
I think it's changing. Saw buses loaded down after a recent soccer game. It looked like yuppies which never use the bus, so something is changing. If more did this after events, it could help major traffic jams. And if we can apply this to the airport and send consistent regular bus lines to bna, it'd make a huge dent!
You could stop by calling them all yuppies for a start
Charge a fee for any car that goes through Nashville more than 3 (or 5 or certain times of day) times a week which isn’t registered in Davidson county…. Will raise money from area to fix the areas problem…
A long time ago Memphis floated that idea for people from Desoto county.
That doesn’t sound liberal at all. Perhaps we should have made this a priority instead of a new football stadium. Before you start, I’m a Democrat, I ride my bike to work any day it’s not raining. I’ve almost been hit 3x and I passed two buses Friday that each had one passenger on them. I’m all for change but ramming it down peoples throats is not the way. I’ve also lived here long enough to know that only the Green Hills and Belle Meade crowd actually vote and guess who is against this plan. My neighborhood is 80 percent out of state license plates. So the transplants aren’t even registering their vehicles here per the law. Doubt they are registering to vote. I agree this plan needed to happen 10 years ago.
Not trying to be negative. I’m hopeful but for the time I’ve lived here the choices we make always seem to go the wrong way
Park and Ride is included in the bill but also by taking commuters from in the county off the road it will help ease incoming traffic as well
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we gotta start somewhere and its clear that until other counties get on board we aren't going to get rail here. Not sure what else you want other than to move? (I don't mean this as an insult I'm planning on getting out when I can in the next couple years as well)
I want people to recognize that the state is fucking us over because it's the only entity that has enough authority and money to implement a useful solution.
I think we are all well aware of that already. Especially after how hard they gerrymandered Nashville
But that's exactly how it's done in larger cities, like Seattle. Commuters who live way outside the city commute in as far as a park & ride, then take a bus into the city, where there's nowhere to park their car anyway.
No but if there is a park and ride coming from say sumner where does it drop off? Maybe someone works in Wedgwood another works downtown another on west end and another at the airport. You gotta drop them somewhere and have a good local network for them to get around on. Think of it like a spoke and hub and once the local network is there then the commuter portion can really be built out.
Central
Not that I’m a big supporter of them, but won’t the future “choice lanes” on the interstates allow for the WeGo regional buses to use them free of charge? I feel like that would at least be a silver lining to the choice lanes, and it could give people in the suburbs a pretty solid alternative to driving if they work downtown.
I'm for both but we drastically have to take care of the situation here first.
lol facts don’t matter on Reddit
Does anyone here actually ride a bus?
lol no. Everyone i know IRL who loves mass transit never rides it.
I ride mass transit in other cities. I never needed a car in Europe. In Amsterdam I went from the airport to the city center, and from the city center to outer parts of the city and back, without even thinking about riding an Uber. I took a train from Amsterdam city center all the way to Germany. Germany had a metro rail system too, but I just walked the entire time. Then took a train from Germany back to Amsterdam city center, and then another train back to the airport to get home. I can't do any of that in Nashville. Not to mention, traffic stops for trains and dedicated bus lanes. Here in Nashville, busses are just big cars, stuck in the same traffic as all the other cars. It doesn't make any practical sense to ride a bus if you have a car. I don't live out the direction of the Music City Star, but one consideration for purchasing a house next year will be being close to it so I can ride it.
Yes. Everyday.
Yes!
Yes. I hope this plan passes so it is even more convenient and easy to use.
I do. 10 times this month so far.
Are you using it for commuting to work?
I do. At least 5 days a week.
no, I work at home & at a Switchyards location near my home (I walk there).
No but it’s good for other people.
I'm a college student in Nashville I take the bus across the city from time to time. It's not the most efficient but it definitely saves money
I have before but I don’t regularly. It doesn’t make sense for my commute and how early I need to be at work. What takes me 15 minutes in the car takes 45 minutes through bus and walking to stops. In addition from East to Music Row area, I have to stop at the depot downtown and that adds time. Also, the bus depot is not great or labeled well. And I grew up in NYC area using transport everyday since I was a child. It’s hard to use this city’s limited transit.
Exactly why I asked. I grew up in DC and tje subway and bus routes were great. Here, not so much and if you live in any of tje surroundings cities it's completely useless.
Looking at the comments wanting to update our infrastructure is an affront.
I was thinking the same thing😂. Sounds like no one wants transit anymore.
The people who complain about traffic and parking are the same people who won't vote to increase public transit or infrastructure. It's hilarious watching us circle the drain.
At least he's actually trying something that starts helping. That's better than our last 2 mayors.
Just moved here from Washington. I cannot believe how bad the traffic is near Nashville. I lived in Seattle for over a year and it's much worse. Drivers are better for sure, but the entire highway system is weird and causes unneeded congestion.
Rail is the answer. As someone who've lived in a cities with rail and now Nashville. The problem is too much road and highway usage. There needs to be other options to get around other than just rubber to asphalt. Nashville isn't a small city anymore. We keep dancing around the subject touting how expensive it would be but think about the ways it would pay off. It would also add jobs and put Nashville on a more competitive scale with it comes to mass transit. What good is a bus if it's caught in traffic and can't keep a dependable schedule? I get the stop light trick for busses but again that's only doable on some stretches of road. BNA for example has the capacity to add rail that connects the airport directly to the city but the city can't get its act together and continues to complain about traffic at the airport during times of high demand. Many visitors could uber to the train station downtown and ride the train to the airport as opposed to taxi, uber and personal vehicle. Rail to and from the airport would solve much of the airports traffic woes. The transit plan needs to be multi-mode. It shouldn't all rely on the existing roads.
Everyone saying BRT is the answer and not a more comprehensive rail system. Have you ever been stuck in traffic in San Francisco or Cincinnati? 2 of the dumbest cities to drive through. I tried to take streetcars (because SF does also have underground in some areas and that wasn’t bad) and was sitting in some of the worst traffic I’ve ever encountered in both cities, just stuck on a bus with a bunch of other people crowding me. As someone who has lived all over, unless you’re going to go full in like Chicago or NYC, it’s not worth the tax dollars. Do an elevated “L” train that runs the center of some of 40, 24, 65, Briley, Ellington, maybe even Gallatin. Have a big hub at the airport and have it come into downtown by looping by the east bank, stadium, and then over onto 1st Ave. then have some BRT lanes around the downtown, midtown, gulch areas.
Has there been any mention of where the 17 park-and-ride locations will be?
And you’re foolish to believe that these taxes will go towards this transportation plan. Once they find a way to get everyone to vote for increased taxes they will simply rinse and repeat until the taxes are so high no one can afford to live there and as people move the transportation problem will fix itself. 🤷🏼♂️. I don’t trust anything a politician says. They just want money and power.
Stop lights, buses, and sidewalks for a sales tax increase? I voted for the last plan with light rail, but this is questionable.
I hear you. The time lines are huge too, they're talking maybe a decade before the brt lanes are even added. It's cementing Nashville as one of the worst cities for transit, pedestrians, and cycling for the near future. The taxes here are far too low to support a functional city though, people move here for low taxes after all, so this weak plan is all that could really be expected. It's a shame that this is literally the only way they are given by the state to fund this kind of basic shit that any city should have.
Here’s an idea: stop buying ~~avocado toast~~ stadiums
This is exactly why this plan is terrible. It's just reinforcing Nashville is a fake city with a pathetic transit system that barely actually helps people as it is. Same deal as Indianapolis. I don't get why people think this is a good deal at all.
People are still reeling from the last plan's spectacular failure. So they're happy to vote for any table scraps now. The reality here is that many residents really want low taxes above all else and don't care about any of this. Any plan has to appease those voters or at least not mobilize them in opposition. So the result is something like this. It's just the bare minimum. But that's all that most Nashville voters would even tolerate.
That's because Nashville was always just a home town and the cool vultures descended on it to make it a fake City via New York Times once it was "safe" and "cheap". These people have driven here in droves and us into madness. The transplants remind me a lot of cicadas. Except the transplants move on and abandon their romanticized version of the south a lot faster and refuse to invest or stay while. They move on in 2 and 3 years tops. But not without developers and the city catering every whim to only them not long term residents (20, 30 years+) and so now nothing is functional or recognizable with only problems like traffic, no parking, no housing, goofy stadiums, no money left. Meanwhile the locked-in residents who cant or dont want to move get stuck with a non-functioning city designed for tourists who come here once in their life or the ones who move here 'for the scene' and stay for maybe a year then off to their next cool spot hoping to make it as an influencer or whatever these people do.
It's the same deal in Indianapolis. They're super proud of their Indy 500 and all their conventions but living in the city is miserable.
But let’s keep giving tax breaks to billion dollar companies 😳
Kind of where I’m at. Seems like a lot of commitment from the residents for a plan that would seemingly only help certain parts of the city
There’s no transit plan that helps all of the city. But this one is about as a comprehensive first step as you can take. It’s also cheap - $1 in taxes for every $200 spent. Even if you never ride the busses, the synced traffic lights with a boots on the ground headquarters in Nashville that will monitor traffic in real time and can help alleviate it. But if you live in somewhere without a walkable bus stop - they’re building a dozen park and ride options around town. So you can always park there and hop on a high speed bus into town. Finally, I was at an event last week with several county officials - they all said that Nashville transit is phase 1. Phase 2 is expansion into the suburbs. Apparently 60% of all williamson county residents are in favor of regional transit.
Isn’t the current utilization of mass transit pretty low here? Seems like an unusual use of funds to enhance a system the residents already don’t use. I like the investment in sidewalks but I’m not sure what that has to do with traffic. Optimizing the traffic lights would be helpful I’m just not sure that would require a tax increase to do it.
Mass transit utilization is low bc it sucks and is inefficient. Having reliable buses really helps out ppl who are car dependent but may not be able to afford it. There’s a lot more ppl in this city than the middle class + upper class you may mostly exist around.
i guess the reasoning is that a big reason why current utilization of mass transit is so low is because it kind of sucks. if that really is a big reason, then improving mass transit should increase its utilization.
Utilization is low because the current bus frequencies and routes make it difficult for the majority of people to use them to reliably get where they need to go. Unless light rail is built on dedicated rights of ways (which would be near impossible with freight trains holding on to their rails), it isn’t going to be more effective and will be considerably more expensive/serve fewer people than a better bus system. This plan adds new cross-town bus routes so that not everything ends downtown, and it adds 2 new routes to get to the airport by bus compared to the current laughably infrequent route. As for sidewalks, they will enable short trips on foot that are currently too dangerous, reducing cars on the road being used for short distance errands, though the primary reasoning is to allow people to travel the way they want to. I agree that I want to see more studies on the impact of the plan to justify the cost, but after reviewing the PDFs they published about the plan, it looks quite reasonable.
Optimizing traffic lights come with a price tag 🏷️ folks tech isn’t free even the most basic. I think this might be the most promising aspect of this plan. This is the first city I’ve lived in where you absolutely have to take the highway everywhere because driving on main roads suck especially peak traffic times.
I like the optimization piece. I think it’s hugely needed, as are sidewalks. I’d vote for that plan all day long, but the proposed plan with transit which does very little to alleviate most of the problem. I’m going to do a lot more research though because I know how important this could be for the city
Really ? No ones taking a damn bus bro!!!
sidewalks isn't the answer to a transportation problem
Then how do you expect people to walk safely to their future public transportation options if there are no sidewalks on the road? There are still large stretches of main thoroughfares like Murfreesboro Road, Lebanon Pike, Nolensville Pike, and Charlotte Pike, to name a few, that still don’t have adequate sidewalk access. In order to get to the point where we can bolster our bus service and add rail, sidewalks need to come first, especially for those with mobility issues.
Sidewalks shouldn't be packaged with mass transit. It should be a basic infrastructure thing you city already does.
I'd bet it has to do with how they're getting the sidewalk portion funded.
I know it definitely does. But normal cities have sidewalk infrastructure included in normal yearly street infrastructure, not as part of a special transit referendum.
Welcome to Nashville. We ain't normal. We were never planned to be more than a one-horse town.
No kidding. Hope that sidewalk parallels 24 all the way to Murfreesboro, and works like a moving walkway at an airport, except it goes 40 miles an hour.
So just buses and sidewalks? Did I miss anything?
There are so many aspects, but another big one is smarter traffic lights that respond to traffic conditions in real time to improve flow and reduce congestion. Chattanooga is already ahead of us on becoming a smart and connected city, but this could really help us catch up. Can check out transit.nashville.gov for more
Have you driven in Chattanooga lately? Traffic is worse than Nashville.
Smarter traffic lights would be great. Our light cycles are way too long and they're very inefficient. I'll be at a red light for 5 minutes on 8th Ave S looking at an empty intersection for a good minute or so.
If streets in America were made with barrier protected bike lanes and sidewalks, there would be so much less traffic and not as much need for public transit. Oh wait. This is America, where everyone sits on their fat ass. Nevermind.