AsianintheNations

Makes sense. I guess it mostly makes sense to build transit centers when there's more than one bus line, while some park and rides can serve just one bus line.

This map from page 52 seems to suggest that a subset of the transit centers would be park and rides. There are also park and rides that they aren't calling transit centers for whatever reason. For the one marked basically at the intersection of Charlotte and White Bridge/Briley (closest to my home), I really hope they take over the former White Castle empty lot for the transit center/park and ride. Back in the old proposal, I had imagined that would also be where the light rail station would've been. I am not sure what the dark red vs. light red park and ride difference is supposed to be. I'm with @Bos2Nash that it makes little sense to have park and rides in downtown (2 are marked on this map).

Thanks! Some things I liked: - Better airport access, via the 55 bus extension to the new airport transit center and potentially a new bus route 70-something from the airport to Opry Mills (maybe will offload some tourist traffic?). The route 18 schedule (every ~45 mins) right now is a joke for anyone actually trying to catch a flight, so having a "real" bus line like the 55 access the airport will be great and create some needed redundancy in case of traffic snags. - 15 minute intervals on major bus routes. This is the threshold where I am willing to go to a bus stop without checking a transit app beforehand. - The transit centers in general. - A reasonable effort to show that the financial impact on residents won't be as bad as it seems, and the substantial contribution from tourists/visitors (pages 85-88 of the PDF). Things I didn't like: - Nothing about trying to re-optimize existing bus line routes so they don't needlessly snake around narrow streets, adding tons of time to commutes. - Nothing about improving connections to surrounding counties or buy-in/reciprocal plans from surrounding counties, despite opening with a graphic showing that this is a major contributor to traffic. - Lack of details about how the BRT/All-Access corridors will look for the selected routes. There's only so much space. Are all of these roads (e.g. Main St., Charlotte Pike, etc.) going to now have only one lane of car traffic in each direction for certain segments? - that's not going to sit well with a lot of people. Or will turn lanes/bike lanes be sacrificed instead? Will any of this facilitate upgrade to light rail in the distant future? - The sidewalk map really hammered home how tiny the sidewalk network is for the city, and the additions will barely make a dent. Feel like there needs to be some kind of system in place where whenever certain maintenance happens (e.g. repaving a major road), then a sidewalk is added on one side unless it is absolutely impossible to do so.

Agreed. As my username suggests, I live in the Nations in a new-ish home. It's great. My neighbors like their homes as well. Sure, it's not the prettiest house in the world (at least I've added a lot of native plants and trees to replace what was cut down when it was built), but it's perfectly well built and does what I need it to. Also, my utility bills are a fraction of what people in older homes on Nextdoor complain about, probably because of modern insulation, HVAC systems, and other appliances. I specifically did not want a home in a subdivision with HOA codes of conduct and building or a convoluted, cloistered road network. I think there is value to non-uniformity of houses and permeability of streets. That means that sometimes, truly atrocious 40-foot jet-black cubes will rise up and there's not much I can or will do about it except laugh every time I walk by. As the new owners add more personal touches and landscaping, it sticks out less and less over time. I've seen memes on social media celebrating "old suburbs" as eco-friendly paradises just because of the giant tree canopy - think Green Hills or Belle Meade - vs. perceived new soulless dystopian housing. That is kind of silly - plenty of "old suburbs" are some of the most car-dependent, sidewalk-less, low-density land uses around, and one majestic oak tree surrounded by herbicide/pesticide-drenched lawns doesn't equate to old growth forest habitat. Also, the older 1940s-1950s houses in the Nations definitely repeated the same 2-3 house plans over and over again, too; arguably there's more diversity of designs in the new houses. It's the renovations and additions over time that have given the old houses individual character, and the best-built ones are the ones that are still standing after 80 years and going strong - some lofted up for flood safety, some with second-story additions, some with marvelous sculpture gardens. I'm not saying we shouldn't renovate and preserve old houses when we can, but there were also a LOT of very dilapidated houses, too, that were just past that point of no return. Some of the new tall skinnies are trash, too, and they'll get fixed or torn down in due time - but the majority are perfectly structurally sound houses and they serve the same purpose as the older houses did when they were new - space for new families to get their start. As the kids and puppies grow up, so will the young shrubs and trees - mine are already pushing 30 feet tall and it's been less than a decade. In the end, I think the "character" of the neighborhood comes from the people living in it, and it's in the chalk scribbles on the concrete, the sports team flags from all over the region, the experimental landscaping in the rain gardens, the front porch furniture and the people sitting in it. The more densely placed houses just let more people be a part of the neighborhood as the population of the city and nation grows. I sometimes get nostalgic for my childhood home in a small town in the Northeast. My child will, against all odds, probably get nostalgic for this funny-looking home in the Nations. But as an article I read some time ago said, paraphrasing, I'm nostalgic about the people who lived in my childhood house, the things we had in it, the memories we shared. I have no specific affection for that house as a physical structure and when I look at a photo of it now on Zillow, I have no desire to buy it and move back in. The issue of pricing in the Nations nowadays is a real one, but I think boils down to a lack of options with lower square footage (too much in the 2000-3000 sq ft range and not enough in the 1000-1500 range) and some developments that are really charging a huge premium per square foot for marginal luxury that is hard to justify for ordinary people, but are probably being marketed at the crux of the problem - real estate investors. Freezing the housing stock in place would certainly not help at all; careful growth (helped by a lot of industrial land that can be redeveloped from scratch) that is calibrated to offer varying price points for real people who intend to live here is what's needed.

Yeah, that was my impression as well. For all the road strangeness in Nashville, I am not aware of any duplicated road names (other than segments of roads that were historically connected or that obviously follow a straight line with a short interruption or realignment). Kind of impressive given the annexation of previously separate areas, though I guess maybe some streets were renamed during that process? It drove me nuts in the Boston area that every adjoining city (Cambridge, Somerville, etc.) would have duplicated street names - technically different addresses due to the city, but physically close enough to cause problems. Beacon St, Washington St, etc. Would love to learn about any duplicated street names in Nashville, if there are any. But I personally don't think it should be permitted, even for a cute little street in the middle of a project like this that may not have any actual buildings bearing its address.

The renders look great! I have no insights to contribute but am confused why the wiggly north-south street is planned to be called "Main St" and the parking entrance "15th Ave." It seems by convention that the wiggly street should be 15th Ave S while the parking/dropoff loop doesn't need a name at all. Wouldn't it only create confusion to call anything here Main St when there's already a Main St in East Nashville?

Looks great, better than I was expecting based on the early sketches. The right turn lane markings on Harding make no sense in the first image - I assume that's an artifact of trying to overlay the rendering on an existing photo. I don't really have a problem with the slip lanes if they replace the "don't stop" sign with a "look out for pedestrians" sign and make a nice pedestrian path in the underpass below White Bridge as part of connecting to the Greenway, which would be safer and convenient to likely pedestrian destinations.

Edit: Oops, sorry for posting this in two different threads. I confused myself and was looking in the wrong thread for my own post, then concluded I had forgotten to actually submit. VUMC Link Tower and Central Garage expansion, from across 21st Ave S: Sample panel:

VUMC Link Tower and Central Garage expansion progress, from across 21st Ave S: Sample (forget what this sort of demonstration panel is called):

I wrote to Rollin Horton to generally support his and Quin Evan Segall's zoning reform efforts but bring up the issue that there need to be safeguards to protect against "missing middle" housing getting hijacked by real estate investors. To my understanding, their "NEST" proposal with regard to residential zones would still keep the ban on non-owner-occupied STRs in place. In fact-checking myself for this email, I concluded that developments like 5100 Delaware and Stateside Park are definitely allowed to have non-owner-occupied STRs since they are not zoned residential (R/RS/RM/AR2A). Stateside Park is zoned MUL-A (pretty sure there was a hearing to change this zoning, but I thought the intention was to allow a small apartment/condo building so I didn't attend - I didn't realize it would basically be a ... fancy motel?) and 5100 Delaware is actually zoned CS. And if STRs had to be classified as anything, I think commercial is actually pretty reasonable. I did frame these developments as a suboptimal use of well-positioned land and suggested that we should be encouraging mixed use along the lines of smaller-sized residences over first floor commercial/office along these important neighborhood corridors. I also feel that these STR units set a bad precedent in that zoning aside, they're being displayed and sold like residential properties - but at almost double the price per square foot compared to an ordinary house in the neighborhood. And I've noticed that this kind of "investor pricing" is spilling over particularly into the exact types of residences that are supposed to be more attainable like townhomes, making them just as expensive compared to even the tall skinny houses, with less living space and no yard.

I'm no fan of STRs, but I feel like if they had to be somewhere, this is a reasonable location. It's really close to I-40 and the elevated ramps to Briley, which are extremely loud all the time and cast a huge shadow, so not great for the sanity of anyone living there longterm. But for a tourist, it's a very convenient location for getting onto the highway as well as other transportation and for visiting the commercial stuff on 51st. I'm much more annoyed about the STRs at the corner of 60th and Morrow, which is a perfect location for a family to live with the access to West Park. Those units also drip tons of rust and some sort of algae-friendly condensate straight onto the sidewalk, but I digress.

I looked at the 2022 ACS census estimates for downtown (tracts 194.01 + 195.02 + 195.03, which includes an extra 0.3 square miles to the north west but otherwise same borders as that report), and those numbers total to only 10,352, which seems like a huge discrepancy from 17,000. Any idea what is causing this gap? I know the estimates are, well, estimates, but they're usually not that far off. Is the report potentially counting people who have a second home downtown or who live there part of the year?

Yeah, it irritates me to no end that every large project here walls itself off with no regard for connectivity ... basically overgrown cul-de-sacs. Edison Park not connecting to 60th/New York, all the stuff on Nashua and Vernon not connecting to existing street grids or adjacent developments, And then people complain that they add traffic since everyone is forced to go the long way around, and thus having to drive through a bottleneck. It doesn't need to be a road, or even a sidewalk, just quit with the giant fences and walls everywhere. I would bet that when the Eventworks building is inevitably redeveloped, there will also be no added connectivity through West Mill or Treaty Oaks. I assume the boxed-in barriers are for a sense of safety and I guess avoiding people walking through their property, but to the first point crime has certainly found a way regardless.

They could just crowdsource the planters ... it might actually turn out kind of cool. Like there could be a point person from each council district or something and they maintain one planter. In the last few months, they put in 4 mini roundabouts in the Nations for traffic calming, and they were ugly concrete things with stones and signs in the middle, but people have made unique installations out of each one. There's the cactus/succulent one, wildflower one, formerly pinwheel one that turned into something else maybe flamingos at one point?

Which crosswalk/island are you referring to? I believe this document shows the planned locations of the crosswalks, even though it doesn't include the bike lane: https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2023-09/2023_09_07_31ST_AVE_Striping-Plan.pdf?ct=1694715339 Except for the crosswalk on the north end of Burch (where the median is pencil-thin) and the one at West End (where it would interfere with left-turn traffic), all of the crosswalks are located such that there's a "rest point" in the median island. I don't think I saw all the crosswalks painted yet.