rookzie

That really threw a "Say what" moment upside the head.. I get the drift though. I was just trying to give Paul assurance that he's not alone. My experience with roadways that connect to airports in general can be expressed with one simple analogy ─ more as an OVERsimplified one. Major airports are like institutions or incorporations in their own rights. Unlike with intercity bus stations, where a street or two can be expected to serve somewhat static needs over extended periods of time, airports, including all related facilities, tend to undergo a need to expand at rather predictable rates several times through the generations. In a manner of speaking, it might seem ironic that airports expansions usually mean more parking for more cars associated with the use of air travel, just as if it were a large suburban park and ride commuter-rail station. It seems that no matter how many multilevel parking garages an airport authority builds on its grounds, that never seems to be enough. The commercial airway network seems infinitely greater than that of passenger rail and intercity bus routes, and to a vast majority of travelers the choice and decision to fly, say, from BNA to Casper-Natrona County becomes a no-brainer in this day and age. It wasn't that way when I was a teen, although it was well headed there even before then. The roads that connect to these airport authority "hamlets", which morph into "boroughs" and then into "towns" so to speak, then turn into death traps, with congestion exacerbated by sprawl and indefinitely deferred infrastructure upgrades. During my lifetime, the first direct access to Berry Field (BNA) was via either McGavock Pk. or from the Vultee Blvd. flyover from Murfreesboro Pk., the eastbound access to which began near what is now Thompson Ln. Then a 2nd and "new" terminal was opened in 1961 with access from perhaps the now-oldest segment of Briley Pkwy. The 3rd and current terminal was opened in 1987 with access from Donelson Pk. and an entirely new interchange from and to downtown Nashville. BTW the Vultee Blvd. flyover bridge was dismantled beginning late 2017. Only a short portion of that now blocked off east approach road remains. Most Nashvillians (or Nashvillains ) of today don't' even know that Vultee Blvd. ever existed. But then more roadway access to airports has been the American way, since early post-WWII days. Very little has been undertaken to provide local-level alternative airport access, which by nature is increasingly difficult for those with more than a single carry-on parcel for air travel. Travel for U.S. passenger-miles by automobile for all rubber-tired types of vehicles, including motorcycles, bus (intercity and transit) and light-duty trucks, amounted to over 7 times that of air travel, including domestic and otherwise (originating or terminating in the U.S.), in 2019. Total passenger (intercity) rail passenger-miles totaled to less than 1-tenth of 1% of automobile miles for that year. Overall, this helps to illustrate the ongoing interrelationship of the highways and surface roadways with airport access, since the vast majority of airport access entails some form of automotive travel and in most cases exclusively ─ as with BNA.

Oh believe you me ─ you really do. You just don't know that you know, because its still in a state of fragmented abstraction to you. In a way, I consider you lucky, because much of what you don't think you know about the roads around the airport probably stems from you're not having to deal with it ─ at least not on a periodic basis ─ and all the other roadways associated with that area in general. That makes it a separation of concern for the most part. But you DO know that you know about Chestnut, Humphreys, Hart, and Houston streets, as well as 4th, 3rd, and 2nd Ave S. IMO that's probably one of the most disjointed, misaligned, diagonalized, and convoluted sub-districts in the core of the city. It's as if those streets were "broke-off" from the branches of a hackberry tree and just strewn around the tracks where they could fit. I'm sure you know more about WeHo than I, simply because you have had to deal with it as routine.

downtownresident is right ─ a larger perimeter. It's part of a long-planned upgrade the Terminal Access roadway loop. That happens to be the northeast corner of that loop, corresponding to the lower right of the expanded illustration. Essentially that portion of new roadway "Fattens" up the existing loop to encompass an expanded Lot A and economy Lot B, the latter lot of which has been somewhat of a sequestered annex, east of the existing Donelson Pk. alignment. There also appears to be a revamped portal into and from the main (east) entry of Economy Lot C, to eliminate that "just in time" pull-off from Donelson Pk. at that hairpin interchange ramp from eastbound I-40 onto southbound Donelson Pk. That should help conserve tire rubber from burnouts, while trying to exit from that lot. I'm just a bit concerned with what appears to be a new ramp that taps off the existing main Terminal Dr. to I-40 E. As the rendering shows, it doesn't appear to have adequate lead in approaching I-40 E, so I'm hoping that it's at least partially barrier-separated to channelize terminal traffic entering I-40 E, as I-40 E approaches the new Donelson Pk. interchange. That's what was done for the SR-155 westbound ramp to I-65 N in Madison.

... ... GregH is correct, and DonNdonelson2 is dead-on. When the current BNA terminal was opened in the mid-1980s, the connectors with I-40 were built only to the advantage of vehicular traffic toward and from the west ─ the direction of Briley Pkwy, I-24, and downtown. Nothing ever had been undertaken to accommodate the ever-increasing demands of traffic approaching BNA from the east on I-40, as only northbound Donelson Pk traffic headed east onto I-40 had an unimpeded advantage. The existing I-40 / Donelson Pk interchange had never been updated beyond perhaps slight improvements to ramps. That interchange was constructed in the early 1960s, as I recall when I was a kid. Since 1961, the area north of the interchange toward Royal Pkwy, Elm Hill Pike, McCampbell Ave., and Lebanon Pk has mushroomed with commercial business and of course multifold traffic surge in a 60-year period. Unless one has had to negotiate and navigate through that snake-pit interchange, then she or he might never be made aware of the congestion issue at Donelson Pk in general ─ much less that of the interchange, particularly if one is a transplant from another region and has had no occasion to have traversed that interchange. That interchange remains as one of the few along I-40 east of downtown, and which has remained never updated for decades to meet increasing demands. Spence Ln, Fesslers Ln, Hermitage Ave, and Fairfield Ave ─ the latter two being in the old central urban core ─ arguably are among the most outdated I-40 interchanges between downtown and Old Hickory Blvd in Hermitage. This improvement is L-O-N-G overdue for both BNA and the Donelson Pk arterial itself.

That Abbott-Martin-to-Richard-Jones re-alignment was approved as a major component of a proposed Green Hills Plan of Transportation of 2011. But it was deferred and basically eliminated with the adopted plan of 2014 ─ the same plan that I alluded to, when I complained in late August about the failure of Metro to take baby steps in efforts to acquire property for realignment of Shackleford Rd with Warfield Ave. As with Crestmoor Road with Glen Echo Road, the realignment of the intersections of Abbott Martin and Richard Jones roads was considered but only in the 2011 Plan. Instead, the 2014 adopted plan "settled" for turning-lane "improvements" as "concessions by Southern Land Co. for constructing its tower at the SE corner of that "Debacle Quadrant". Due to the discussion and debate on whether or not Hillsboro High School would resolve to move into new tower or to expand on its existing campus, followed with the eventual and now nearly complete reconstruction of the campus layout, reportedly it was deemed at the time that the high school was located too close to the proposed realignment area for the realignment to have been implemented during that period of uncertainty of the high school's expansion plan. As an alternative in lieu of the realignment with Richard Jones, Abbott-Martin would have been shifted slightly north near its current east end, cutting into the property of the existing 7-Eleven Exxon station at the NW corner with Hillsboro Rd, and a new Abbott-Martin Extension would have passed north of Fox's Doughnut Den and then along a path bordering the southern extent of the school campus proper, all the way to the campus' eastern boundary at Hillmont Dr. In turn, Hillmont Dr. would have intersected with a then-to-be realigned Lone Oak Dr. at Richard Jones, transforming the current "dog-leg" offset signalized intersection into a standard 4-way set-up. That would have eliminated the current separate signal timing allocation for each of 4 legs in the cycle sequence. Also, Benham Ave. would have been extended past its T-intersection with Glen Echo to intersect with the new Abbott-Martin Extension and then terminate at Richard Jones. The intent of all this would have been to provide a parallel bypass of Richard Jones and to add some grid structure to northeastern Green Hills commercial district. But not even that ever materialized and it probably never will at this point. The upgraded high school football field stands in the way of the Benham Rd extension, since the high school decided not to build a new tower complex and to move its extracurricular activities to an off-campus site. It took 'til Kingdom Come before the new CVS began construction in preparation for the eventual Glen Echo Rd realignment component of the greater plan. Then too in all fairness, CVS might have been under some lease-term agreement such that Metro determined it best to defer the project. That said though, there just no longer seems to be a "Greater" plan, as it were ─ at most just a few chunks of upgrades at best.

... ... Totally agree, 137%, ad infinitum...... That blue metal cladding always was an atrocity to me — just downright tacky-@ss, especially for this day and age. Even if it does happen to be nothing but structural block behind that cladding, ANYthing other than the current material could be an improvement, except for maybe off-the-wall stuff like cedar shake or clapboard siding. It might not be so bad, if the weren't corrugated cladding as it is now, and at the VERY least it should have been plain, smooth in finish and texture. For many decades that front has stuck out like a thumb to the hammer.

I hope you don't do what I still do for entertainment now and then ─ drive around those things 2 or 3 times nonstop. At my age it sometimes takes the simplest or even "simpleton" things to get my fix of levity. The smaller ones are the "funnest", since they're like 360 hairpins, kind of like how the Tilt-O-Whirl used to get me in stitches (or donuts on a snowy plaza).

The Smeags posted this, this past Tuesday in the "Inner Loop - CBD, Downtown, East Bank, Germantown, Gulch, Rutledge" thread. ─ pp. 766-767 Since it's relevance overlaps two separate topics, we (starting with me) digressed and discussed its significance in relation to transit (or not). The jury is still out ─ way out.....

Not to say that buses are a curse. During the mid'60s I rode the bus daily to high school in DC, and as a punk back then, I felt privileged to do so because it gave me some time alone between school and home. That was important to me back then, since my aunt as a school teacher also had been one of my own at that school (Woodrow Wilson High in Tenleytown). Sure, I had to transfer twice during the route, until I mapped out a longer route with just a single transfer, but either way that peak time of travel also was my peak of asylum, because that way I didn't have to ride to or from with my aunt. And during my last ten years of employment here for the state, I preferred it because it was a one-seat ride with far less walk to the office and the house combined. I actually got lazy about driving for that 10 years. Thing is, buses are great for local surface travel, if they're accessible and frequent and don't require going to or waiting 'til kingdom come to get from point A to B and from B to C & D before returning to A. Buses are foundational and fundamental for mobility and access, but they pale as an attractive regional mass-transport option ─ even more so if they don't offer reverse-commutes and only run during peak hours. Fact is, the administration seems to have buried its head in the sand, when it comes to taking a leadership role in pro-active pursuit of advanced-capacity regional transport, even with participation in a consortium of counties and sub-regions. And in reference to the recent CSXT activity in the South Gulch, it just might be premature to speculate, since at the moment there only are presumptions, presuppositions, and theory. Railroads often remove from service tracks that are underused or no longer used, since the owners are required to maintain them as long as they are officially declared as active. The least that would be done is to disconnect entry to these tracks, to allow restoring to service at a later date; otherwise the company will rip them up to save on the cost of maintenance. That said, the remaining property at Kayne Ave. Yard isn't the most optimal for a commuter-rail facility other than perhaps for passenger loading. It might even be a stretch for use as urban light rail, if the property could be formatted as two opposed stub-track arrays on such a narrow tract, especially if an easement would be required.

No doubt Freddie (O'C) would and likely even vocally agree with you....

Looks as if the city is yet again about to miss another big opportunity to pre-empt what could be a potentially huge asset for regional/commuter rail. My apology for this digression being in the wrong thread and perhaps not the most germane to the topic. True, it would take much-much more outlay to work with CSX for access into and out of this as a facility, which is central to all the proposed corridors. But that's how other regions built their start-ups and and expansions for the late 20th and early 21 centuries ─ acquisitions chunk by chunk. That's how it has worked in Florida; that's how it worked in Colorado, and that's' how it's been in the process of working in Virginia. While regional rail would bring more activity into the gulch, and therefore more noise, it also would give strength to the argument of electrification over diesel-electric, whether as EMUs or loco-hauled push-pulls. Track noise is far less annoying to a dense residential community than noise from large internal-combustion engines under load ─ even more noise from the same diesels throttled up for starting movements. Nonetheless, this might be the final mass-opportunity in all our lifetimes to reserve central-core property for transit purposes. As an aside, Chicago's Millennium Station and Union Station have demonstrated all too well the use of air-rights for high-rise structures over busy commuter tracks. But the tracks ─ in some form and fashion optimized for commuter-rail ops ─ have had to remain in place for the new pilings built to accommodate them. Another appropriate and potentially favorable chance to work with big-corporate redev for future commuter-rail was forgone with the Lifeway property deal, when the corporate chess board still contained a few active pawns and rooks. Even with no funding source earmarked for such acquisitions, at the very least some resolution should have been proposed and made visible with an open forum of discussion. No one seems to be thinking out of the box, and willing to toss up such a concept, even if it ultimately becomes a clay pigeon for trapshooting.

I share your frustration with the N-S (North-South lack of a connection between Boston's North Station and South Station. I was even irritated with that scenario, when I lived in the area and used to ride the old Buddliners of the New Haven (South Sta) and the Boston &Main railroads, before the 'T' (MBTA) assumed operations of all regional commuter rail. When I lived there, the 'T' was just the trolleys, the subways and the 'L' (or 'EL") ─ Washington St Elevated. There had been very little build-out expansion back then, the newest when I left the area having been the Red Line heavy-rail subway to Quincy (or "QUIN-zee", as opposed to the pronunciation of the one in Illinois). I rarely ever needed to cross-commute via both stations at the time, since ─ unlike now ─ service back then was still rather limited in both daily frequencies and range. In fact, back then, with private transit, intercity, and commuter-rail systems still the norm, there still were instances in which some commuter-rail runs were simply discontinued and abandoned, before such ops were taken on by public agencies. The equipment was usually well worn if not worn-out beyond its useful life. At any rate, I'm a strong proponent of electrified rail for airport connections, as I feel that the use of even modern "Tier-4" (EPA) rated locomotives for push-pull service simply isn't an efficient way to run such service in the long term, especially with an airport being the physical endpoint. Several commuter-rail set-ups elsewhere, such as at Fort Lauderdale, Providence, Miami have diesel-electric push-pulls, a mode that does seem to work for those set-ups, either as point-to-point or intermediate airport connections. If airport service is done with LRT (light-rail), then electrification is a non-issue. DFW has both LRT and sleek DMU (diesel multiple units - built by the Swiss vendor Stadler), which I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool fan of, but it's far better than nothing. The MBTA actually has published an executive summary and proposal for electrification of its regional rail, but that's all to this point. Philly's Septa got a break and huge advantage, when it built a connection to PHL, because it already had something to work with like a silver platter ─ an underutilized ex-Conrail (Pennsylvania RR and Reading RR) industrial branch reconstructed and extended in a semi-circular "hook" to serve 4 separate airport terminal stations. Around that same period (1984), Center City Commuter Connection tunnel in downtown Philly was completed. This tunnel then provided a connection between Philly's then-two main commuter-rail stations ─ Reading Terminal and 30th Street Station. In so doing, the then-new airport line could travel to and beyond downtown Philly Center City, in a manner similar to what the Boston N-S connection would have been like. Arguably speaking, the N-S provision should have been included with the Big Dig, but now it might be too late to muster support in concert. South Bend International Airport (SBN) helps balance air traffic among ORD and MDW. The electrified line that has served it since 1992, also is the result of having a nearby electrified main-line commuter rr. The line's historic terminus in the heart of South Bend was forgone in favor of rerouting via an expansion to serve the airport. This was a decision of the agency which took over the commuter operations of that rr, which shares a portion of the rail line with freight. At one time even the freight ops were electrified (now dieselized). Sadly, the rerouting does no good for downtown South Bend, which has begun an economic rebound as a Rust Belt city. Finally, Caltrain has had a funding advantage, whether we like it or not. At least 7 state, regional, and local agencies comprise the overwhelming majority of the aggregated funding source for the Caltrain electrification, and that doesn't include the 32+percent tacked on by the FTA. The primary reason I say that electrification of the pre-existing WeGo commuter-rail line would be a hard sell is that it usually has to have the volume of ridership for agencies to garner a sizeable chunk of federal funding for such upgrades, and in some cases, federal funding has been as high as 80%. Otherwise, the vast majority of such funding must come from the local and possibly the state. That just won't be foreseeably happening here, as far as I can perceive, as it's already taken at least 2 human generations for the mid-state to even effectively prepare for regional rail with commitment to investment. Metro Nashville and the surrounding counties just don't have the political will do commuter rail for even an additional diesel-electric push-pull or DMU line, much less to go all electric for the one lone line shared by two counties. We don't have that political ecosystem and mentality as the decision-makers do in Denver, which made that quantum leap decision from no rail to electrified in one swoop, even though construction has had and still has funding shortcomings to complete build-out of its lengthiest line ─ the Northwest Line (over 40 miles). For Nashville in the end, some kind of tunneling likely will need to be approved and implemented ─ whether it be for LRT or commuter-rail in some form or fashion ─ since existing bridges cannot economically be modified to accommodate rail passage needed for connectivity or access, even if 1 or 2 might be capable of structurally handling the dynamic loads of LRT, but IDK.

Actually, I was wrong, since I hadn't reviewed the planning in almost 7 or 8 years. The realignment had been proposed for straightening the dog-leg intersection of Lone Oak and Hillmont with Richard Jones. With that same area bordering Lone Oak on the east and bounded by Richard Jones and Warfield, discussion included realignment of Shackleford and Warfield. The latter alignment would greatly eliminate heavy risk-taking for cut-through traffic east bound at Warfield and headed north (left turn) for either Shackleford (toward Belmont and Granny White) or farther north to Richard Jones and beyond. The current state not only results in backups along that segment of Warfield (between Hillsboro and Lone Oak) and even the Kimbark loop which intersects twice at that Warfield segment, but also it has been the source of many near-hits as cars pull out at the 1-directional stop sign on Warfield to turn left onto Lone Oak. That T-intersection is so close to T-intersection at Lone Oak and Shackleford that eastbound left-turning Warfield traffic has very little opportunity to cut onto Lone Oak. The all-way stop at Lone and Shackleford results in an almost continuous streaming of southbound traffic along Lone Oak. The all-way stop also creates northbound back-up along Lone Oak, further exacerbating the situation from mid-morning to sundown. The new development at Lone Oak and Shackleford now prevents any previously proposed realignment of that intersection with even Warfield, since the part of the property directly faces that intersection. To make matters worse, developers leveled most (but not all) the post-war duplexes and a few single-family bungalows along that segment of Warfield and replaced them with new stock ─ with no sidewalks I might add. The only element being implemented to date seems to be the realignment of the Glen Echo offset with Hillsboro, once the new CVS opens. But even that's taken over half a decade even after Krystal packed bags and vacated the property.

I realize the solicited response to this seems long overlooked. But it has required some background explication of opinion. Along with New Jersey Transit (NJT), Chicago’s Metra (the “ME” line only), the South Shore (NICTD) of Northern Indiana, NYC MTA’s Long Island (3rd rail) and Metro North (3rd-rail and overhead catenary), and Septa (SE Pa.) are all public agencies which a half century ago inherited their electrified operations as legacy infrastructure from formerly privately owned lines. Some of these agencies' branch lines either have been discontinued (in part or entirely) or have become reinstated as electrified service, as with Septa’s recent partial restoration of the West Chester line by extending the Media/Elwyn Line to Wawa, Pa. ─ now referred to as the Media/Wawa Line. This happened officially last Sunday (8-21). It’s just a mere 3 miles, which might not seem significant, but it’s a positive step in fully restoring service to the remaining portion to West Chester, which lost service from Philly in 1986. On the other hand, Denver’s RTD commuter-rail employs an entirely new infrastructure (less than 10 years old) of four lines that use EMUs that are entirely FRA-compliant (similar to Philadelphia Septa’s newer EMUs). All RTD’s commuter-rail lines (not its light rail lines) utilize segments of pre-existing railroad lines along with new offsets and extensions peculiar to each route. Denver decided from the start to use electric instead of diesel propulsion over speed and air pollution concerns. In the Bay Area, Caltrain (or the "Peninsular Commute", as it used to be called in the days of the Southern Pacific RR ownership) has successfully demonstrated the case for its ongoing upgrade to electrify some 50 miles of its RoW between SF and San Jose. The initiative in part is to improve service times via faster acceleration and shorter headways, but it also serves as strides to additional goals ─ for compliance with Cal’s strict emissions regulations of reducing air pollution and noise within a highly densified region, and facilitating the building of a future railway tunnel from the current 4th and King St station into downtown San Francisco's new Transbay Transit Center, since diesel trains cannot serve underground stations. WeGo Star commuter-rail remains a far cry from justified electrification of at this point. Unlike with most other agencies, WeGo just doesn’t have the ridership density to justify electrification for either EMUs or locomotive-hauled push-pulls. Granted, much of issue has stemmed from a lack of major investment beyond the initial opening in 2008 and having to deal with constraints of the existing single route system ─ one of which is the narrow RoW clearance at the Omohundro water treatment plant. Scalable frequency can be increased to an extent with strategically located passing sidings, but double-tracking is the only way to eliminate complexity in train dispatching for concurrent bi-directional operation in achieving peak frequency. Also, the fact that the Riverfront station never effectively can serve additional lines an expanded network means that it basically will remain isolated from an expanded network that would include lines with potentially much denser ridership. The same would apply to the proposed Northwest Corridor, if its eastern terminus would be separate from a centrally shared terminal with all other routes of long-range proposals. Unless and until a regional rail network can be built out to serve more than a single corridor with those corridors sharing a single meeting point, it will remain impractical in this day and age, to electrify the single existing corridor, even with expanding that corridor to connect with the airport. The existing corridor would be considerably more in demand, if it’s terminal could be shared with other corridors. I mentioned a number of years ago that a connection could be built to reroute the Eastern corridor to a centralized shared terminal location by expanding on the “Southern Junction” that begins north of Hermitage Ave. at the NES South Substation and connecting at grade with the CSX in the Cameron-Trimble area. All major expandability of the Star network would be contingent on a huge infusion of capital and dangling carrots for CSX, and this has been said an infinite number of times during the recent 2 calendar decades. Piecemealing the single existing corridor without ongoing action for build-out of other long-ago proposed corridors basically means that the potential of the existing single corridor never can be realized. Collectively, the individual separate corridors would tend to organically induce ridership among themselves by transfer connectivity. Sustainable funding only can be justified with establishing of additional routes IMO. As a commuter-rail hub, Nashville is no "Chicago", which currently has 4 separate downtown terminals to handle its commuter-rail operations. Chicago has a post-pandemic commuter-rail congestion issue, a redux of the more recent pre-pandemic years, and without those separate terminals, Chicago never could have achieved even close to the capacity level it currently has. As far as the Riverfront Station for the WeGo Star is concerned, it may never become economically or logistically feasible to relocate the Eastern corridor terminal to a central location. It's not an absolute must for attaining ever-increasing levels of service and ridership. But expanding the network to include other corridors is a necessity ─ and an urgent one ─ with or or without a single commonly shared terminal. I do think that improvements other than electrification are doable and even needed for the Star's single line, including the suggestion to extend it to where Sparta Pk meets I-40. Even that would require some improvement to the interchange, to better accommodate a Kiss-and-Ride or Park-and-Ride facility. That also means fulfilling the collateral need for better security and surveillance efforts by WeGo.

Quite an "original-sounding naming choice ─ "Green Hills Station". They make it sound as if it were some transit-oriented development with a train or something. And "Green Hills" in the name is more than trite; they should've called it "The Shax at Lone Oak" or something. I pass this thing about 8 times a week. It's right in the path of a formerly proposed realignment of Shackleford and Richard Jones Rd.

While others might beg to differ, I consider that structure more in line with the "Chicago School" architectural movement, which took on a form of Modernism during the turn of the 20th century. This style generally had a minimum amount of ornamentation. It's reported that Art Deco had its beginnings during the early 1910s, with the most salient and "de-facto" features having evolved into full blown identity by the mid-to-late 1920s. While the interior might contain more outspoken expressions of Art Deco, Nashville was rather conservative in its transition to the burgeoning of Art Deco, particularly with the construction choices of this particular building. On the exterior, the only thing that piques my interest at all would be the pilaster-like vertical projections along the east and south sides, particularly with the quoined brick feature extending from the ground to the top of the first story. Other than that, noting really stands out as Art Deco. Indeed, it does appear to be a rather sound structure, but it's existing structural plan may not readily lend itself to adaptive reuse, as we might prefer.

I also think that's just not a best practice to restore that particular ped path, in general, even though the industrial switcher that uses that "team track" to Cockrill Bend Industrial runs just one round-trip daily ─ to and from Kayne yard. It needs to be either a ped bridge (which likely is not justified) or it needs to be a gated RR crossing at Delaware. I used to hang out over there back in '60s and '70s, and even then I always walked with gator eyes (wide open, peripheral) in that seedy district. The tracks alone used to breed such activity, and I should know.

Yes, I don't think MLBrumby necessarily associated the Denver move with homelessness. Instead he seems to have had a homeless dude accost him in some way ─ somewhat tainting his memorable experience as a visitor. I've had the same happen to me some 35 years ago in Norfolk and more recently here in Nashville, outside the Charlotte Walmart near the curbside bus stop. Then I went inside the store to sic the manager on his fat-a$$, to at least temporary avail.

It doesn't seem to be related to homelessness ─ at least that doesn't seem to be the epicenter of the action undertaken. According to the Denver Post, "...city officials banned food trucks from several popular nightlife blocks in an effort to more quickly disperse crowds and minimize violence as bars close." As the Smeags said, they're only punishing the vendors instead of addressing crime itself. It's BS to blame any cause of crime on selling food from vendor trucks or kiosks. Would the same reasoning apply, if those same vendors had leased space within a brick and mortor open-air structure? They going to close them down from their own spaces? I think there would be some immediate picketing at City Hall in a NY minute! THAT's where the real fights would be! “To increase safety for all who visit and work in the LoDo area, including the food truck vendors, DPD believes that having them operate in a different location is a solution to help facilitate people leaving downtown during the out-crowd and to curb large gatherings, during which DPD has seen conflicts and violence...” (The police spokesperson stated) That's the kind of crap that the city of Va. Beach used to do when I lived in Tidewater Va. back in the '80s and '90s. I suspect in part it has some to do with whiney residents, but more to do with a recent incident in which Denver police officers shot an armed man outside a bar and injured six bystanders with their gunfire. The vendors make their livelihoods off those drunk-puppies streaming from the watering pits, and that's no different from when I myself used to drag-a$$ to a White Castle on the west side of St. Louis at 3 AM back in the early-mid '80s after a Friday night of hopping. Or to a White Tower back in the day, outside Detroit (Hamtramck. MI). I think this issue just might have an effect on future of a couple of incumbent council members, lest they forget what the real constituency is.

I would declare "Bingo". With O'Connell having announced his candidacy for mayor, the Council vote kinda put him between a rock and a hard place. O'Connell probably has had some serious ambivalence, given that a draft agreement would have closed down the majority of the city's downtown business and tourism district to non-convention traffic for the duration of the convention. So a vote other than 'A'bstain ─ in its own right ─ could have been (or even would have been) to his detriment. So, that said, I'm not really that surprised he abstained, even though he was quoted as having stated that it would have been difficult to support the convention ordinance without the mayor’s office backing it. In the July voting, he said he might have voted for it, if he had felt that the administration (Mayor's Office) had been transparent in its position to explain either why the Council should support the agreement or why they negotiated it if they didn’t support it.

Well, we're on a roll ─ not on car tires, but in the murder and assault rates. I used to take note of the monthly-turned-weekly shootings aired on the local media. But anymore, I've almost become oblivious if not callous to daily ─ even twice daily (or more) ─ shootings that now seem to have become the new norm, in this city alone.

What the heck did you do this time!?

While it's "not mine" per se, I still can voice an unsolicited opinion as others have. The Fifth Third Building was originally the Third National Bank Center, constructed in an early postmodern design 1983-'86. It incorporates a sense of neo-classical elements (Egyptian Revival) ─ the most salient of these being the tapered freestanding colonnade (forming the north end of the plaza) and pilasters at the base of the structure. I would have preferred a more monolithic construction with solid stone elements, instead of with the less expensive fabricated construction using stone tiles as cladding. Its design seems to have been a modern tribute to the Downtown Presbyterian Church, which was built in Egyptian Revival in 1846. It was built as an expansion of the Third National Bank Building (currently known as the ServiceSource Tower), which opened in 1967 at the NW corner of 4th Ave and Church. St., the site of the original Maxwell House Hotel. The wooden furnishing fixtures would be better matched to a much more contemporary curtain-wall design structure IMO. An example of a better fit would be the OneC1ty complex ─ in particular, the TOA (Tennessee Orthopedic Alliance) health center at 8 City Blvd. The interior of TOA features dimensional hardwood timbers with exposed butcherblock end grain, for steps and landings as well as for benching.

Great point.... I can understand those whose sentiment and theory supposes that increased spending in a state around a national convention increases total per-capita earnings in the accommodations-, retail-, and service sectors, and that a multiplier effect means that campaign spending would result in proportionally more dollars in the state economy. The thing is, an accurate evaluation of economic benefit often fails to account for the offset effect by displacement of normal local commercial activities. Roughly half of all security expenditures for these events is typically spent on non-local personnel, and wages earned by temporary workers often are not recirculated in the local economy, after the event has ended. Therefore, it can be questionable whether or not such spending should even count as economic impact for the hosting city. Beyond that, it would seem somewhat short-sighted to host a national convention, with respect to the targeted benefit of the national convention itself, as far as wide-range party-induced influence on delegate selection of party nominees is concerned. Tennessee has been reliably Republican as a whole, since the mid-late 20th century, although actually had been considered a swing state during much of that period. Nowadays, both the Democratic Party and Republican Party usually have only held their conventions in swing states. It would just seem to be somewhat of a waste to host the RNC (or the DNC) in a state which already has evolved into having a "cemented", "hard-wired" party affiliation ─ not to say that the pendulum wouldn't swing back to the other way before the turn of 22nd century.

Just let the RNC convention go to Milwaukee. Besides, it hosted the 2020 DNC convention. Given that the Wisconsin G.O.P. Senate has "adopted" (contrived) a method of keeping past-appointed G.O.P. board members in office, by refusing to confirm replacements nominated by the state’s current Democratic Governor, effectively it has exploited a loophole that focuses on bureaucratic technical matters to seemingly “endorse” a scheme to seize unilateral control of state boards. It’s done this consistently by declining to confirm appointments by the Governor. The state Supreme Court recently upheld the state Senate’s intransigence in blocking (nearly) all appointments. We don’t need to engender in Nashville the degree of historical polarity I’ve observed in Madison, Milwaukee, and Racine — and more recently, Kenosha. IMO the state of volatility that has evolved in Wisconsin probably renders Milwaukee a better fit for absorbing the shockwaves that often have accompanied such “trophy” events. Just sayin’..