[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

1 hour ago, MLBrumby said:

I really mean this respectfully, but I do go into "lawyer mode" when I'm seeking specifics (and that's a reference to my MBA side), so nothing personal, but here goes... 

So how much should they (public transit companies) be able (allowed) to lose? And should public dollars be spent irresponsibly? 

So let's get to the basics... it sounds like you're "all in" on Light Rail. If not, then let me know. On the other hand, I think a city of Nashville's size should NOT go "all in" (or partially) on LRT.  There may be the "one or two off" city that's suitable for rail right out of the gate, and if so I'd like to know them. But I will stand on my original assertion that it's foolhardy for Nashville to go into light rail now (or ever). If you have the figures, I'll study them,  I don't know why you oppose an initial BRT approach, but I'm open to your reasoning, as there may be others here who are just as interested. I further back up my argument with the assurance that initial BRT lanes can be converted at a later time and expense to rail if so needed.

I've said this many times before: I don't understand public transit, but I've done what's in my grasp to come to some understanding of what's suitable to Nashville. I sensed (correctly as it turned out) 5-6 years ago with the (then) Mayor's proposal for rail that it wouldn't be approved ... or funded. Transit is like a striped unicorn to Nashvillians; meaning they need to be convinced it exists before they even accept it COULD happen in their city. Step... 1... 2... 3... ? 

You are not "losing" money by operating transit - you are spending it as you would funding any public service. I appreciate neither that premise nor your other which implies that funding transit is irresponsible. That aside, I see the answer to your first inquiry to be ideological. If it were up to only me, I'd want transit to be fully funded by subsidy, but it isn't, so I leave that to the democratic process. 

I'm not opposed to BRT, at the beginning or ever, and feel like I made that clear. What I'm opposed to is an assertion that it is the highest mode appropriate for Nashville. Cities like Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, and Salt Lake City make it clear that light rail works in urban forms similar in scale to Nashville. We don't have to search long to find examples that have been successful for years.

You make your ideology clear with respect to transit. Ultimately that is at the heart of whether investments like these come to fruition. I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on this. I'm for light rail because I've come to learn how impactful it is from my work, my study, and my personal experience. It is all too convenient to look at the price tag of a capital project or at a transit agency's budget, not truly understanding what transformative impact good transit has on people and cities, and write it off as a "boondoggle". 

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

14 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

In addition to my JD, I have an MBA. So I always go to numbers and experience, and I'd love to see the P&L numbers on LRT for all cities (esp 2M and under). Sadly, I haven't thus far, but I assume you have. So I'd ask how profitable and at what point (population) is it better to pursue LRT over BRT?  Many here know I've been a huge proponent of BRT... I'd even go larger than 2M as a threshold for LRT, but there are cities/metros of that population that have gone forward with the expense. Looking at a city as averse to rail as Nashville has shown itself to be (Mayor Berry's proposal of a few years back and Dean's BRT before that), I'd say it's far FAR wiser to pursue BRT before investing into a much longer term (breakeven) investment like LRT. I'd like to hear your response with some numbers, which admittedly I haven't been "privy to". 

I think a good-faith conversation about building transit, at least within the scope of projects in this country, cannot begin under the prerequisite that we must judge our options by how profitable they are. Transit projects (and for that matter, most road projects) are not built to make money and rarely approach breaking even. They are heavily subsidized, and we expect that of them. In addition to my MPA, I have a master's in planning, and we consider these projects far more holistically: Are we connecting communities? Are we bringing people to jobs? Are we providing a safe and reliable transportation alternative to those who cannot drive? That is not to say that transit projects should not be or are not extensively analyzed quantitatively. A mountain of possible projects could be wasteful if implemented in Nashville, but we should come to our conclusion after consideration of a variety of factors far beyond whether a profit is generated.

I really don't disagree with your assertion that BRT has a place in Nashville. Most corridors don't have the densities of population nor jobs to reasonably support light rail. That said, I don't think it makes sense to choose BRT instead in every instance because it's cheaper, as light rail as a mode carries inherent benefits. The distinction is very especially pronounced when BRT is built to substandard conditions, which is the American norm. I would be quite fearful that that would happen in Nashville.

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

On 1/18/2024 at 3:33 PM, MLBrumby said:

I hope Mayor O'Connell will have a great, easy-to-read summary of the proposal for transit out by May!  I hope it includes BRT with dedicated lanes... and (I've said it here many times) connecting some old streets that were broken up by Interstates.  I hope it's not LRT... I think any city under 2 million that puts tracks down for LRT is wasting money on a boondoggle. 

Under 2 million? That would exclude many cities that currently have well-utilized light rail. 

Besides that, there's no reason to have an arbitrary population cutoff point to determine if rapid transit is feasible or really involve that metric much at all. It's far more nuanced. The populations of Detroit, Portland, and Boston, for example, are quite similar. Does it make them all similar candidates for transit success? Certainly not.

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

On 12/8/2023 at 3:21 PM, bnacincy said:

There is some space at the junction of Bellevue Rd and Old Harding Rd in Bellevue where you could put a small station-the ideal situation would be to relocate the small strip center across Old Harding and put a station there.

Or better yet find a way to incorporate the strip center into the station-best of both worlds.

Agreed. That would likely be the best Bellevue location. Alternatively, there's plenty of open space northwest where the rail crosses Sawyer Brown Rd. I think it would be a blunder to place a station in Pegram or Kingston Springs at the expense of one in Bellevue; it would be an exponential difference in ridership.

[4012 Hillsboro Pike (zoned for 15 stories, mixed-use residential)]

On 3/5/2023 at 2:55 PM, jkc2j said:

I currently live in the Atlanta area. Buckhead is roughly 7.4 miles from downtown/midtown Atlanta, almost the exact same distance as Green Hills is from downtown Nashville at 7.5 miles so technically Buckhead is a tiny bit closer to Atlanta than Green Hills is to Nashville. Buckhead’s skyline rivals some midsized southern cities and exceeds most smaller southern cities.

As stated Green Hills would need a massive revamp of it’s infrastructure to be able to compete, though I do see the comparison. Both are essentially quasi upscale edge cities though Green Hills functions more like an extension of Nashville and feels more like a neighborhood. Buckhead essentially feels like it’s own thing away from other parts of Atlanta. 

I'd personally prefer places like Green Hills to develop more like the edge cities of DC, with an abundence of midrises lining the main corridors with a few 20-30 story buildings thrown in to break up the monotony. Buckhead, while nice to look at from a disrance leaves a lot to be desired at the street level.

You make a good point, but I do want to note that Green Hills is about 4.3 miles straight-line from downtown and about 4.6 miles using a direct route (21st Ave S). The center of Buckhead is about 6.3 miles straight-line from downtown Atlanta and about 7.8 miles using a direct route (Peachtree Rd). I think this supports what you said about Green Hills being much more like a neighborhood than Buckhead.

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

4 hours ago, sambo said:

Minimum of $51.5 million for this? I've seen some cities have built streetcar lines for 2 or 3 miles recently for $100 million with most of the funding from the feds. Could especially use one when the Midtown area buildings get built in the future

I saw this comment and thought no way this could be true, but it is. OKC Streetcar was $135m and Kansas City Streetcar was $102m.  A Broadway streetcar makes so much sense and would easily match or exceed many of its peers

[Travel observations and new developments of other cities and countries]

On 11/17/2022 at 1:12 PM, chc3 said:

I visited Kyiv on Ukraine’s Independence Day in 2018 and 2019. These photos from 2019 will give you a sense of the city’s unique beauty.

We visited Kyiv at the exact same time in 2019 - what a coincidence! Great experience for me. I was especially impressed by their transit infrastructure and underground commercial spaces. 

[Tallest buildings in Nashville by official building height]

2 hours ago, Markitecture said:

Super interesting stats and thank you for providing. I thought Houston was the 4th most populous USA metro, but now that is Dallas and Houston is 5th? Also, I thought Birmingham had slipped behind Huntsville in metro pop. stats.

 

I got the data from the Census Bureau at https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-metro-and-micro-statistical-areas.html. These are the 2021 estimates.

2 hours ago, donNdonelson2 said:

Here is some population data that disputes Dallas being larger than Houston. I suspect the stats putting Dallas in the power position are including Dallas PLUS Fort Worth.

screenshots from:

texas-demographics.com &

World Population Review

I used population estimates for metropolitan areas (MSAs) from the Census Bureau. The DFW metro area does indeed include Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, and of course a variety of other cities.

[Tallest buildings in Nashville by official building height]

Hi all. Not sure if this fits here, but I wanted to share a bit of analysis I did on total skyline heights.

I initially started doing this to compare Nashville's combined building heights to those of its peer cities like Charlotte, Austin, etc. and also with my current home, Salt Lake City, but I ended up expanding my analysis to 48 of the top 50 US metro areas by population. To clarify, I have excluded Washington, D.C. as building heights there are restricted to the point where there would be very little eligible data for this analysis and the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA) as it's way too polycentric for good data and there are very few tall buildings in any of its constituent cities regardless.

To populate my analysis, I utilized the "existing buildings" lists for each city from Emporis and included buildings at or above 164 feet (50 meters) with the presumption that buildings shorter than this height both 1. do not contribute significantly to the skyline and 2. are unlikely to have equally reliable data available across every city being measured.

I've included four tables with the same data that have been sorted four ways: total combined building height (decreasing from top), total metro area population (decreasing from top), metro population divided by combined building height (increasing from top, smallest value indicates highest height per capita), and average age of buildings included (decreasing from top). 

I hope this is interesting! This took quite a while to complete due to having to copy and paste from the Emporis lists. There are quite a few curiosities I perceived in this data. I'd love to hear any thoughts on this information.

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

4 hours ago, bnacincy said:

The problem in Nashville is where to put it.

And where would it terminate?

West End or Charlotte corridor to downtown to Murfreesboro corridor to serve the airport?

[5th & Broadway | 501 Commerce | NMAAM | 34 story apt, 26 story office, + 183,000 sq. ft. of Retail]

49 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

It goes back to the research I did when the rumor of the Apple store first appeared. There is no city under 3 to 4 million in the Metro population with 3 Apple stores.

There are a few exceptions. Honolulu and Pittsburgh have 3 and Las Vegas has 4.

[Nashville Bits and Pieces]

54 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

The Nashville MSA is ranked #36 with a 2017 population of 2,027,489.  The growth rate from 2010 is 13.37%.  I projected the seven year growth rate forward to the year 2045 for all of the top 36 MSAs.  Nashville ranked #29.  From 2010 to 2017 several other MSAs grew faster than Nashville so this method of projection shows us losing ground to them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_primary_statistical_areas_of_the_United_States

The answer to your question will become more clear after the next recession when we have more recent data on population movements in both expansionary and recessionary economic climates.

BTW, using my projection method from 2017 to 2045, we outgrew these MSAs: Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Lous, Kansas City, Indianapolis and Columbus.  And we would be only 20,000 away from passing Cleveland.

Just FYI, I believe you are using figures for the Nashville CSA instead of the MSA. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas our MSA pop for 2018 is 1,930,961 with an 8-year growth rate of 15.56%.

[Nashville International Airport Development thread]

1 hour ago, NashvilleObserver said:

My understanding was they were never going to build it with rails and platforms. It was going to be built so that platforms and rails will easily be added later once a light rail line is approved. 

That seems reasonable. I had just inferred, from comparing the new look of the central walkway cover in the updated rendering video above to the images attached, that there had been made a point to change the official design in accordance with the plans moving forward. I certainly do hope they'll be leaving room for the possibility of rail integration in the future.

[Nashville International Airport Development thread]

It appears that the rails and platforms for the light rail connection we've been hearing about recently have been removed, as compared to past renderings.

[Davidson West: Bellevue, Bordeaux, Green Hills, MetroCenter, Nations, N Nashville]

6 minutes ago, OnePointEast said:

I wonder what's happening behind Lead Academy, on Charlotte Pike. They've seem to have razed the entire area behind the school. Possibly a residency?

Looks to be a 436-unit apartment project by the name of Novel Charlotte (from the Development Map).

[Paramount Tower, 65-68 stories, approx. 750', 200 units, $240 million, Church Street Park]

3 hours ago, NashvilleObserver said:

A view of our skyline with Paramount tower.

After the Embassy Suites gets built, that hole between the Sheraton and Cambria should more or less be filled in from this view. It's really been great to see the patchiness in the skyline fade away and this project should go great lengths to make it "pop" even more.

[The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread]

20 hours ago, bnacincy said:

Don't have to buy em just find a way to get Radnor Yards out of Davidson County and redirect most rail traffic around it so as to free up capacity then you could build park n rides where people can drive to (like the Wilson County line has). Since the majority of downtown workers are from Davidson county you could have park n rides in the Antioch area, Madison, Bellevue, West Meade, a Belle Meade station at the end of Bosley Springs rd and of course a massive one at the current Radnor Yards in addition to suburban park n rides in the surrounding counties.

That seems to me the only viable option to get cars from coming into downtown,

I still don't understand why this hasn't been the priority. Utilizing the existing rail presence seems to be the cheapest/most effective option here. Though I was all in on the last transit plan, it's hard to ignore how much better the coverage would be with a system that already travels through many high-traffic areas. 

Though I'm not sure how true it is, I had heard CSX was operating at capacity anyway and would realistically need to look into relocating their operations at Radnor.