rookzie

.... .... Yes, as Smeags said, Carowinds has been a major amusement player in the Central Mid-Atlantic. It's a 50-year-old venue that opened 1973, the year after Opryland, and it seems to do well to fill the geographical niche-gap between Kings Dominion (Doswell, Va.) and Busch Gardens (Williamsburg, Va.) and Six Flags over Ga. With it located at the confluence of I-85/I-77, it gets a lot of intermediate patronage from the Eastern Midwest (Cleveland, Akron-Canton, Charleston (WV), in addition to that of the main corridor from the Northeast and the Mid-Coastal Southeast. As The Charlotte Motor Speedway and, as donNdonelson2 noted, NASCAR Hall of Fame also fuel the popularity of Carowinds. Carowinds made national news this past June, after it had been discovered that the "Fury 325", the world's tallest chain-hoisted coaster (5th tallest in the world), had developed a crack in its steel-tube track-support structure. The coaster was shut down, of course, and a new support column was delivered for repair, in mid-July before a second crack was discovered soon thereafter. That coaster was reopened early mid-August. As much as the monster coasters were my favorite amusement-park attractions for nearly 60 years ─ almost exclusively ─ I no longer can handle them at my age, and the last time I rode them was at Kentucky Kingdom, May 2000, then still a Six Flags theme park. Because it had been on a weekday with short waiting lines before public schools had let out for the summer, I must have ridden one coaster (The Chang) some half dozen or more times in 3 hours, while screaming like a whore under cover (or rather, under "the" cover).

It worked as well in Twin Cities MN, but both King Cnty and Twin Cities also had a huge head start in proactive staging for light-rail. Then too, both are of population centers ranking 15 and 16 of the largest MSAs (as of 2021). Metro Nashville with M'boro, Franklin ranked only 35. Yet Metro Nashville (MSA) ranked slightly with or above those of Santa Clara Cnty (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Palo Alto) and Norfolk-Va. Beach-Chesapeake-Portsmouth ─ the latter two MSA's of which have built start-up systems (as opposed to legacy or existing systems) of one or more forms of fixed-guideway transit with at least some dedicated RoW segments. In all fairness, Va. Beach has been a strong hold-out against participation, and the flood of buses in that water-locked region has long been saturated. The point is, those other regions undertook progressions of preparation long before start-ups of scalable advance-capacity transit (non-bus) might have became prohibitive costly and unforeseeably untenable. Both Seattle and Twin Cities regions received significant funding support from their respective state legislatures during inception of the advance stages of development of light rail. Despite Nashville MSA region in 2020 having reached a level of only about 2/3 of those for the Seattle and Twin Cities MSAs of census year 2000 ─ when both these latter regions had begun physical construction of their start-ups ─ vehicular traffic patterns have tended to have a magnifier-index effect in congestion-level density and duration over a span of 20+ years. That effect tends to be higher for medium-large regions which have limited mobility/accessibility options to roadway vehicular travel. It's unquestionable that the region is rife with its share of "transit deserts" ─ some major and numerous ones, which exist in all American cities. Nashville's growth evolved more as "outward" than "upward" (vertical), so it's no wonder its has had major bottlenecks, given that it has sizable surrounding suburbs and exurbs. And just as with any other medium-sized and large American city, the cost of urban living typically has resulting in more disparity between the haves and the have-nots, as far as affordable urban living is concerned. Since employment centers have tended to shift away from the innermost urban core, and since those who must access those employment centers in order to sustain their employment have tended to relocate away from the core, commuting patterns began to change long before the pandemic of 2020 modified the workplace and workforce paradigm for those jobs amenable to such change. Seattle and Twin Cities didn't just flood their respective regions with buses. They also formed consortial entities for oversight and governance of transit initiatives, a concept that current leaders seem to concur with. They didn't just infuse buses to increase frequency and to shorten headways. Rather, they were concurrently busy planning and gearing up in the background for advanced-capacity transit options on these already established peak routes with the buses as stop-gap.

Well, if this is any "harbinger" of what to expect for the next 4-8 year (hopefully no less than half or even a third of my supposedly remaining time before the bell tolls), then I wouldn't hold my breath. A referendum with a properly structured agenda which also focuses on significantly more than a single issue ─ one best bundled with similarly weighted concerns ─ perhaps would stand a better chance of being passed, than the one in May 2018, particularly if proponents can build a broader coalition of supporters than in the past. It very well could be another "from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire" scenario, based on what WSMV reported: "O'Connell said his plan will cost a fraction of the one that failed in 2018 and one major difference is they will focus on buses, not lightrail." () I'm not trying to be conclusive, though ─ just watching how the canary flies.

Thanks for your response. My sentiment is the same. As a former dairy commuter for a solid 10 years on what is now branded as WeGo, I’ve all but given up on hope on the same ol’ song ‘n’ dance — essentially little more than sporadic patchwork, since the year I retired in 2018. That year WeGo undertook significant service cutbacks, some of which never were restored, such as the N° 2 Belmont route. While Belmont is not an arterial, it remains an intermediate thoroughfare, and the loss of the route leaves a rather transit desert between 12th and 21st avenues. As a former long established route since the days of the privately operated NTC ( Nashville Transit Company), and which became public during the early 1970s, the N° 2 was a primary factor in my decision to buy where I am now (2003). I considered it not only for commuting, but also for as a mobility option during upcoming advance retirement years. But while those only are personal gripes, WeGo leadership seems not to have taken seriously a major reconstitution of its service mapping, as as least a couple of agencies elsewhere have proposed (Columbus OH, Houston) — even if only outlined for public review. Nashville still is podunk, as far as transit is concerned, with no relief in sight.

Several of us crusties in the forum recall this building as the former Hopson M.E. (Methodist Episcopal) Church (later Hopson UMC). I know because I recall some having mentioned it by name several times, when the property sat empty during the early 2010s until then-new owner Eastwood Village began internal demolition for conversion of the complex. The largest and most prominent portion shown facing Greenwood Ave. and the newest of three namesake sanctuaries was completed in 1929. A much older sanctuary opened in 1868 and located farther south on the property can be seen from Chapel Ave. The two sanctuaries are connected by a third building constructed of brick with stone accents around 1954, also best observed from Chapel Ave. The older sanctuary building, referred to as Hobson Chapel when it opened, actually is the second-built Hobson church. The original Hobson of 1851 had been located on a current parking-lot site at S. 10 St. and Clearview Ave., within the triangular block bordered by 10th, Clearview, and Woodland. The Hobson UMC congregation relocated to its current site on Clarksville Pk, less than a half mile north of the Briley Pkwy interchange. While the existing pre-Civil War sanctuary and the newer sanctuary already were protected by a historic overlay, Eastwood Village retained intact the 1954 center portion of the complex ), which IMO appears as a well conceived architectural transition between the old and the newer. The large stained-glass windows (four on each side) of the newer sanctuary were replaced during the previous decade with contemporary sashes of a prairie-style.

Thanks, Cliff for the clarification. If there's any one someone who would be well informed of such granular details, then it would just HAVE to be you. I ain't trying to be patronizing and whatnot ─ that is, unless I was about to be pushed over a "Cliff", but I have to say you're one of the primary Liaison Kingpins who make this forum such an authoritative resource "reference" (my former academic librarianship oozing out).

For the first time in Amtrak’s 52-year history, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, is providing substantial, multi-year funding that will enable reaching a new inflection point for the ability to augment intercity passenger rail in the United States. There were (are) two stages in the FRA's Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) Program. In May 2022, the FRA requested "expressions of Interest"; anyone could respond. Then the FRA issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) published December 20, 2022, under which government agencies could apply, with all selected agencies to receive $500,000, per corridor, to pay for development of a scope and budget for performing a Service Development Plan under a succeeding grant. Remaining steps are Preliminary Engineering/Environmental Clearance, final design/right-of-way acquisition, construction, and testing/commissioning. It is important to be aware that the Corridor Id is not a funding program. It's a merely a congressionally chartered study. The only output of this study has been as a formal report to Congress based on which Congress may decide what to do next, and the IIJA funds for corridors are to be disbursed based on the Corridor ID study. In March of this year (2023), Tenn. formally submitted its application to the FRA Corridor ID Program, for service Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta, according to Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, who commented directly during the congressional Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on Tuesday 6-06-2023. As far as I'm aware, the TN statewide study commissioned by the TN Legislature last session on the potential for passenger rail service, was being conducted by TACIR (Tenn. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations) with a commissioned-report study completion date of July 2023. Deputy Governor Howard "Butch" Eley submitted a memo to the FRA on March 15 confirming the state's continued interest in and cooperating support for exploring passenger rail service opportunities. That said, the state very likely could has HAVE fulfilled requisites for being awarded funds in conjunction with this ongoing study, but NOT for any actual implementation of a rail route. Any funding for the nearest round of progression in corridor development would be only for "Tier-1" designated routes, of which the Nashville-ATL proposal is the only route ranked as such in the state.

Dredging’ up the Antediluvian Period, aren’t you!!?? I had classes in Garland back in 1973-‘75…

I believe the excerpt referred to by newschannel9 from the report issued by theTennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) mentions that the “Tier-1” priority Nashville-Chattanooga-ATL route would enable connectivity with multiple long-distance passenger rail routes in Atlanta: “…Nashville and Atlanta, this route would also connect to the greater Amtrak network as several long-distance routes pass through Atlanta to destinations such as New York City and New Orleans.” Not to quibble, but the reference is misleading. True, Nashville-ATL indeed had been determined a viable passenger rail route, but the New York - NOLA destinations constitute only a single long-distance route — known as the Amtrak “Crescent” train 19 (southbound), 20 (northbound). No other passenger rail currently serves Atlanta, which used to host a number of options during the early and mid 1960s. Nashville-ATL is a great start, but my hope is that the Georgia legislature — which shares some of the same intransigence and transit-apathy as TN does — finally will push for an ATL-Savannah corridor. I believe such a route has been formally submitted to the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) Corridor ID program, a requirement for all proposed expansion routes. An ATL-Savannah mini-corridor also has been determined as viable and popular. The last service between those points was the Central of Georgia Railway’s “Nancy Hanks”, discontinued 1971. With Atlanta serving as a hub and with a new and much more accommodating terminal (replacing the current Peachtree Station), a Nashville-ATL route, in conjunction with the proposed ATL-Savannah line could connect with three existing long-distance routes — not only with the “Crescent”, but also the “Silver Star” (NY - DC - Richmond - Raleigh - JAX - Orlando - Tampa - MIA) and the “Silver Meteor” (same except via Fayetteville NC instead of Raleigh; and not Tampa). I’ve ridden all three of those routes in their entirety more than once. The key to value-added connectivity in the long-term is to identify and to collaborate with both federal and state officials among neighboring states to transcend the severe constraints of limited connectivity at points like Chicago, DC, and NY.

From the beginning, I had "what-if" reservations about the impact of that I-95 collapse. I always supposed that relatively little of New York/NJ traffic to Philly takes that I-95 segment, unless they're headed somewhere close to I-95-proper in Pa. I'd wager that the majority of regionals on the NJ side of the Delaware River and who commute *to* Philly generally take the NJ Turnpike or I-295 or Burlington Pike (US-130) and navigate to Philly via the Betsy Ross Bridge, although many also take the Palmyra Bridge. So, most non-regional through traffic will bypass that segment of 95 and Philly altogether, with northbound traffic exiting I-95 proper at Wilmington and then taking I-295 over the twin spans (DE Memorial) to the interchange to join the NJ Tpk. Of course, the local movements on the affected segment of the -95 corridor north of Betsy Ross would be affected the most. Most drivers from the Trenton area tend to take Rt. (US) 1 at Morrisville or take the more northerly I-295 across the Delaware River, although some do take I-95 across the river. Closure of I-95 likely added to traffic on other arterials and slowed down traffic to some extent, but the redundancy of the roadway infrastructure likely helped diffuse much of the projected impact of the closure. With all this said, had the closure occurred south of the 95/295 split south of Wilmington, then the repercussions might have been more collateral and disruptive. So as usual, nearly all the national media coverage had spun the incident into a melodrama of north-south gridlock.

Generally, locomotive-hauled trains require gentle gradients for both adhesion and safety, but such trains for short consists (as for the WeGo Star with a locomotive at one end only), can handle somewhat steeper grades. A main advantage with both LRT and HRT and even commuter railroads which run exclusively EMUs (self-propelled electric multiple units) is that the gradients can be significantly steeper, although not like roller coasters ─ of course. These can be around 7%, whereas with freight lines it usually is limited to less than 1.5%. When I was a kid living in NW DC during the late '50s and early '60s, we used to sneak and use the streetcar as our "ski-lift", for street roller-skates. Two of us at a time would sneak up and grab onto the rear of the streetcar, as it ascended (Upshur Street on the old Nº 74 route to Soldiers Home). We'd brave it even further by cocking our skates to follow the flangeways of the street rail. Since there were no turns (or switches), we didn't have to worry with getting thrown off by a switch point or by the swing of the jackknifing rear end on sharp turns on the way up. Of course, we'd sometimes get shoo'd off by nosey porch onlookers and following automobiles, but it did save us time and energy from having to walk up that street, in order to cruise back down. (and to think I'm still here now...)

...Just as I've said in at least one previous post, with respect to rapid transit in Metro. With the necessary lead time in planning and and engineering, it just about would be time for me to meet the "Deep-Six", before any sizable segment would be up and running. There have been even much more start-up projects in other regions much more robust than any single portion of previously proposed LRT (light rail transit) lines for Nashville. WMATA's (DC-MD-VA) first opening (start-up) was a portion of its current Red Line Metro (Heavy Rail - HRT) was constructed and opened in just over 6 years spanning just over 4-1/2 miles. In all fairness, the Washington Metro was the result of political will mustered on the federal (congressional) level, in part to get rid of the pre-existing privately owned DC Transit streetcar network. LRT start-ups typically have taken from nearly 3 years (~9.5 miles) to 5-6 years (~14 miles) from initial ground-breaking to opening, so I have a running chance to still be around, if Metro Nashville stops kicking the can down the road within ─ say ─ 5 years. But there's still the development stage that takes a while before any construction is undertaken. Finally, yet another somebody on this thread, who's actually older than me (than "I" ─ 72 next Sept.)...

...Probably around 2030 or so, about the same amount of elapsed time as it took for conception and approval...

Just wanted to add to this, in total agreement BTW. As I recall, the Free Ride circulator Blue and Green routes were introduced during the Karl Dean administration, when Paul Ballard headed the MTA. The effort to rebrand the MTA as WeGo Transit, including the Music City Star, began back around early-mid 2018 or so. That coincided with the failed Transit Referendum, which followed soon after the exposure of then-Mayor Megan Barry’s unsurprising resignation. Without much notice, WeGo announced that it would be instituting major service cutbacks, with one of the most notable being the elimination of the Free Ride circulators. Suddenly, it was announced that the city’s financial state had been revealed as “untenable”, and that funding cuts meant undoing much of what little perceived progress that had transpired during the previous 10 years. That affected not only downtown riders, but also those drivers of the N° 29 Jefferson St. route, which had become an extension of the Free Ride Green Route in 2016. IMO that had been one of the most outreaching of transit efforts by extending the fare-free privilege to a core sector community which needed it the most — along the entire Jefferson St. Corridor, including John Merritt Blvd. It’s not to discount the potential for providing such privileges to other routes serving similar demographics. Mayor Barry also had proposed such service ailing the 12-South route (N° 17 12 th Ave S), particularly for those riders between Edgehill and downtown. Some routes were realigned and combined with others (N° 8 8th Ave S with N° 1 Vine Hill [via Bransford Ave]), while some were eliminated altogether (N° 2 Belmont). It didn’t help that the city’s liberal policy to developers to permit random and frequent closures of downtown streets, often led to unpredictable reliability of the Free Rides — never showing up for uninformed riders — and the MTA rarely ever posted sufficient (if any at all) notices of detours in clear view at the stops. At this point time, it may appear that past “progress” (as it were) never happened at all, and that long-range plans for more ambitious, high-capacity transit have all but languished.

Just an aside.... McGavock Pk. had a ferry crossing until around 1965, when I was in HS. When it was shut down, the ferry itself was moved to serve Cleece's Ferry (a.k.a. "Clee's") , which connected OH Blvd. (Old Hickory) in Bell's Bend with Annex Ave. in the Charlotte Park / Croleywood area. Cleece's was shut down by the end of 1990. Coincidentally, both ferry crossings ─ the last two of all such ferries in the county ─ were "displaced" with progressively completed extensions of Briley Pkwy. The last time I would do Cleece's was around 1978 or so.