The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[smeagolsfree]

Article from the NBJ about getting CSX on board a regional transit plan.

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2015/04/getting-csx-onboard-with-commuter-rail-in.html

Also I heard a blurb on the news the other day that Sen Ketron is still looking into a monorail between the Boro and Nashville

[Neigeville2]

I'm pleased Ketron is thinking about it anyway; perhaps as he educates himself on the issue he'll become an advocate for a good regional solution.

 

Also, I think a lot of people when they say "monorail" are just thinking of elevated trains, which is the practical (and to my eye, aesthetic, from both inside and outside the train) solution once people get over this nonsense of wanting trains stuck in traffic, running over pedestrians and hitting left-turning cars.  

[smeagolsfree]

Here is a related article from the Murfreesboro Post.

http://www.murfreesboropost.com/sen-ketron-still-pushing-hard-for-monorail-cms-41833

[jmtunafish]

Here is a related article from the Murfreesboro Post.

http://www.murfreesboropost.com/sen-ketron-still-pushing-hard-for-monorail-cms-41833

 

Some of the comments after that article are just sad.  I'm half European (French) but also very conservative.  I don't think there's anyone in Europe who doesn't understand the benefits of a viable, well funded public transportation system, conservatives and liberals alike.  The notion that "everyone" uses interstates but only a select few would use a monorail (or train or light rail or streetcars) is ludicrous.  When TDOT builds a new exit in Wilson County, how is that any different in concept to TDOT building a streetcar line in Nashville?  Besides, it's the Tennessee Department of Transportation, not the Tennessee Department of Highways.

 

There is zero freedom in being forced to own and use a car.  Don't get me wrong; I love owning and using a car.  I drive nothing but Nissans but would seriously love to be able to also have the freedom to hop on a train or streetcar or monorail.  I also don't mind at all paying a few extra dollars in taxes if it means having more transportation options.

 

With Middle Tennessee becoming more densely populated, we have got to start planning now.  We cannot continue adding lanes to our interstates, particularly since the years of construction hassle don't always make the finished product worth the mess.

Edited April 8, 2015 by jmtunafish

[rookzie]

I'm pleased Ketron is thinking about it anyway; perhaps as he educates himself on the issue he'll become an advocate for a good regional solution.

 

Also, I think a lot of people when they say "monorail" are just thinking of elevated trains, which is the practical (and to my eye, aesthetic, from both inside and outside the train) solution once people get over this nonsense of wanting trains stuck in traffic, running over pedestrians and hitting left-turning cars.  

 

Like the most recent occurrence just over 2 weeks ago, with that L,A. Metro Expo Line LRT train.

 

Left-turn "smack-downs" have been far more frequent than one might be led to think and are not rare by any means.  Most have not resulted in derailments, particularly of the spectacular, disastrous nature as that March 28th one.   It would be the same as if it were a dedicated-lane bus, but especially for a train, which is constrained to rails, and therefore does not have the latitude for swerving (not to say that that would make it any safer).  That's one of the medium-to-high-risk tradeoffs with any shared or dedicated street rail, where vehicles must time-share a point in RoW, especially with crossings.  The reason that we never hear of pedestrians being struck by streetcars is that we no longer have streetcars.  Run-overs were quite common until the 1940s here in Nashville.  Needless to be said, they had been grizzly and not for the faint of heart to witness.

 

This always will happen without end, as long as drivers keep having egos.  It does not matter how "educated" and mentally "broken in" that drivers become to respect the presence of rail, as there always will be some among us who will take that chance, or who will be engaged in distracted driving.  With Light-rail vehicles and streetcars, even with the heavier and beefier railroad commuter-rail push-pulls or self-propels light Northern Indiana's South Shore in South Bend, where the train actually travels along the street, and anywhere the RoW must be shared with traffic, this risk is much higher than one might imagine.  All it takes is for the crushed automobile materials along with a few hundred pounds of human bones and tendons from the driver and rider to get oriented and lodged in just the "right" way, to disrupt the clear path of any one wheel on the rail, and you have an instantaneous derailment.  Think about the many thousands of dollars wasted on any one such incident in multiple liabilities and property damage to both the track and to the rail vehicles ─ not exactly you typical Maaco job either, you know.

-==-

Edited April 8, 2015 by rookzie

[MLBrumby]

Rookzie, you have a wealth of knowledge about Nashville's past, especially w.r.t. to mass transit.  So what do you envision (realistically) in transit for the city in the next five years?   This would be interesting to out-of-towners like me  because we aren't hearing the mayoral campaigns on this topic. 

[Vrtigo]

Here is a related article from the Murfreesboro Post.

http://www.murfreesboropost.com/sen-ketron-still-pushing-hard-for-monorail-cms-41833

Some of the comments after that article are just sad.  I'm half European (French) but also very conservative.  I don't think there's anyone in Europe who doesn't understand the benefits of a viable, well funded public transportation system, conservatives and liberals alike.  The notion that "everyone" uses interstates but only a select few would use a monorail (or train or light rail or streetcars) is ludicrous.  When TDOT builds a new exit in Wilson County, how is that any different in concept to TDOT building a streetcar line in Nashville?  Besides, it's the Tennessee Department of Transportation, not the Tennessee Department of Highways.

 

There is zero freedom in being forced to own and use a car.  Don't get me wrong; I love owning and using a car.  I drive nothing but Nissans but would seriously love to be able to also have the freedom to hop on a train or streetcar or monorail.  I also don't mind at all paying a few extra dollars in taxes if it means having more transportation options.

 

With Middle Tennessee becoming more densely populated, we have got to start planning now.  We cannot continue adding lanes to our interstates, particularly since the years of construction hassle don't always make the finished product worth the mess.

 

Case in point:

 

 

[RonCamp]

Case in point:

 

 

 

There's an old saying in the urban planning world that says roughly, "if you plan cities for people and places, you get people and places; if you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic."  The corollary is the reminder that the true mission of the Department of Transportation is to move people, not cars.  

 

As cities grow and mature, car-based transit systems run out of room and capacity, as noted in the recent NashvilleNext draft.  The focus then must shift to a complete transit solution, that accommodates vehicular traffic along with pedestrians, bikers, traditional buses, bus rapid transit and dedicated bus lanes, light rail, commuter rail, streetcars, subways (not in Nashville because of our limestone), carpooling, car sharing, ride-on-demand services like Uber, etc.  Cities as spread out as Nashville will never overcome the car as the primary means of transportation, but providing other options is crucial.  When your non-single occupancy car commuters are such a small share of the overall pie significant growth of this mode is easily achieved.

 

Though I am sure to AnotherOption in the comment above car travel seems inexpensive or even "free," it is not.  Americans will learn over the long term what other developed societies have long realized - public transit is expensive, but so is automobile travel.  It has simply been so heavily subsidized by the government here for so long that we have relatively little understanding of what it really costs. 

Edited April 8, 2015 by RonCamp

[Paramount747]

Study after study shows adding more lanes to the interstate make traffic worse. They need to make more exits. In any case if this cat wants to sit in his car longer, widen I-24 and see what happens.

 

In my case I have no reason to go to Murfreesboro anyway, so the point is moot.

[rookzie]

Rookzie, you have a wealth of knowledge about Nashville's past, especially w.r.t. to mass transit.  So what do you envision (realistically) in transit for the city in the next five years?   This would be interesting to out-of-towners like me  because we aren't hearing the mayoral campaigns on this topic. 

 

Really, I'm just "talking loud" and sayin' nothin'.

I was born just on the cusp of the transition from Nashville's distant past to the current, and because I always had been sensitive to details of my environments (Nashville and other towns that I grew up in), I also happen to have retained a lot of that needless historical trivia in my head.  You know, some of the most seemingly superficial elements in the eyes of a child can ramify to a mental repository at maturity.  That's how I seem to have been able to recall "garbage" imagery (e.g. like an old steam-locomotive water spout, removed in the late '70s, that had existed at 12th Ave. N and Herman Street, and a 2-story steel coal tipple, removed in the early 2000s, at Jo Johnston Ave site of the current Bell South equipment center.  I really have yet to meet any one of my contemporaries who ever gave a damn about such details, and my ability to recall so many details all too often has resulted in my posting overly lengthy posts (you think?).  And as I look back on some of these, most others probably couldn’t give a damn of that fanatic rambling.  Like, who else but me would have ever cared to notice that short brick smokestack that I posted about the old factory on Charlotte (West End/Midtown thread).

But I will give a comment or two on the question asked.  First, I think that I mentioned well over a year ago, that one council-member publicly stated that, had it not been for the headstrong focus on the construction of the MCC, Nashville could already have had at least a start on light-rail.  Of course, that presumption is at best academic, rather than fact, and it might very well have been a blessing in disguise that we now still have nothing that shows a stride in “advanced-capacity” forms of transit, until we can become better engaged on assessment of priorities.  Second, I do believe that Nashville long, long ago could have had intercity rail restored by now (cancelled indefinitely since late summer 1979), after Rep. Bob Clement (Tenn.), ranking member on the (federal) House Transportation and Infrastructure Railroads Subcommittee, had secured federal funding to arrange and stage a special Amtrak passenger-train run from Louisville to the Nashville Union Station in Dec. 2001.  The purpose of this had been to conduct a feasibility study on the viability of restoring passenger rail service to parts of the state other than Memphis (which always has maintained some service, except for a very limited period of a few months during the late '80s or early '90s).  It soon became a moot point, as little if any buy-in from the state (as well as that required from neighboring states) could be garnered, such that total apathy quickly rendered this concept as barely a memory.

There is so much change in the dynamics of Nashville and the mid-state as a whole, that I am afraid to make any prediction or evaluation.  If I could, then I might as well wrap my head and become a swami with a crystal ball (the cordless, rechargeable type).  I really wish that I could answer that question with conjecture, but I've just seen so much egotistically political activity with past administrations, that I almost just give up trying to "recalculate the path", as I have become “war-weary”, so to speak.

-==-

 

Edited April 8, 2015 by rookzie

[drewbert]

Curious if anyone else went to the MTA strategic plan meetings yesterday. It sounds like they've got a good start, in coordination with the NashvilleNext people, and now they're trying to get lots of public comment over the next couple months in particular. (I'm planning quite a missive myself.) Steve Bland talked for several minutes, took Q&A, and I came away pretty happy. Of course, results will matter most, but I'm happy that he says they're looking not just at the big, multi-year big dollar projects, but the more immediate things that can be fixed over the next year or two. Things like payment systems, the app (supposedly coming by the end of the year - I actually believe them this time), routing, branding, and such.

 

http://nmotion2015.com

 

Edited to add: RTA has a meeting tomorrow night in Clarksville about transit options in that direction: http://www.nwcorridorstudy.com

Edited April 8, 2015 by drewbert

[grilled_cheese]

Next meetings:

 

Community Meeting

Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 11:00 a.m – 1:30 p.m.
Nashville Public Library, Downtown Branch
615 Church Street, Nashville, TN 37219

 

Community Meeting

Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
North Police Precinct
2231 26th Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37208
615 Church Street

[rookzie]

Next meetings:

 

Community Meeting

Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 11:00 a.m – 1:30 p.m.

Nashville Public Library, Downtown Branch

615 Church Street, Nashville, TN 37219

 

Community Meeting

Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

North Police Precinct

2231 26th Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37208

615 Church Street

 

So like, these "next meetings" are "back in the future", eh?

-==-

Edited April 9, 2015 by rookzie

[nashmoney]

Nashville mayor unveils new MTA bus shelters

 

http://www.wsmv.com/story/28755907/nashville-mayor-unveils-new-mta-bus-shelters

 

Great news.

 

Still don't understand why NONE of the BRT bus shelters have a seat/bench for riders to sit. If I have been standing at work all day and my feet are killing me, last thing I want to do stand on hard concrete for 10-15 mins on the bus. There is just a pole there to lean against. This is especially hard on the elderly.

 

[rookzie]

Nashville mayor unveils new MTA bus shelters

 

http://www.wsmv.com/story/28755907/nashville-mayor-unveils-new-mta-bus-shelters

 

Great news.

 

Still don't understand why NONE of the BRT bus shelters have a seat/bench for riders to sit. If I have been standing at work all day and my feet are killing me, last thing I want to do stand on hard concrete for 10-15 mins on the bus. There is just a pole there to lean against. This is especially hard on the elderly.

 

 

 

Their excuse for not providing a bench probably is that they don't want to encourage the pigeons to poop on.  You might think that a bench could be fabricated with parallel stainless-steel round tubing as the seat, even without a back, a cheap but effective version of those used with DC Metro subways and which actually are thick granite slabs.   The parallel-tube design would be self-washing while durable (and stompable).  I can't tell by the pic, but it also needs at least something to set bags and sacks on, for the transit-dependent to keep from having to set them down on that wet, gritty pavement, after a driving rain with run-off.

-==-

Edited April 9, 2015 by rookzie

[Nathan_in_DC]

There's a pretty big movement to install items like rails instead of seats to discourage loitering. Kind of hard for a bum to sleep on that.

[whatwhat]

Last night I spent 40 minutes stuck in a parking garage that was backed up to the 7th floor due to the road closure on Broadway.  With all the new buildings downtown coming online with dedicated garages at what point will the volume of commuter traffic gridlock the downtown area on a regular basis? It already happens on occasion when there are big events, and I know Pinnacle has a police officer out helping traffic exit that garage.  Also is there a solution?  Will just reprograming the traffic lights do it?

 

For the record normally when traffic is backed up 3 or more levels in the garage I just park my car a go grab a drink at one of the many fine establishments downtown!  

[rookzie]

Last night I spent 40 minutes stuck in a parking garage that was backed up to the 7th floor due to the road closure on Broadway.  With all the new buildings downtown coming online with dedicated garages at what point will the volume of commuter traffic gridlock the downtown area on a regular basis? It already happens on occasion when there are big events, and I know Pinnacle has a police officer out helping traffic exit that garage.  Also is there a solution?  Will just reprograming the traffic lights do it?

 

For the record normally when traffic is backed up 3 or more levels in the garage I just park my car a go grab a drink at one of the many fine establishments downtown!  

Just add that to the stack.

 

With all this trendy talk about a master transit planning (MTA strategic) ─ which all well and good ─, we never hear about engaged public discussion on addressing what can be proposed to address such matters which do not directly relate to public transit, but rather to accessibility and navigability as a whole, with a focus on the CBD.

 

There should be some shared concepts for both long- and short-term recommendations for handling such difficulties, which most of us project will escalate immensely every 6 months or less, and become periodic (already), if not regular occurrences in the DT.  We already are aware that the transit  "officials" cannot think it alone.  I long have had reservations about reliance solely on Metro Public Works and the administration to fulfill their part without nudge.

-==-

Edited April 9, 2015 by rookzie

[BnaBreaker]

So people would rather stand for fifteen minutes everytime they wait for the bus than risk...God forbid...giving a random homeless person the opportunity to not sleep on the ground. Stay classy Nashville.

[MLBrumby]

So is there a mayoral candidate who is actually talking rail transit?  

[MLBrumby]

Oh, that's happening in cities all around the country.  

[BnaBreaker]

The homeless are treated like animals in most places it seems, not just in Nashville, so that doesn't surprise me. 

[smeagolsfree]

It's like this. Do you let a vagrant sleep when there is a pregnant mother or an elderly person that needs to sit and wait on a bus.

[BnaBreaker]

It's like this. Do you let a vagrant sleep when there is a pregnant mother or an elderly person that needs to sit and wait on a bus.

 

Definitely not, but how exactly is removing the seats entirely helping out the pregnant woman and the elderly person in that hypothetical scenario?  I'm sure it does occasionally happen that there is a homeless person and/or jerk that occupies the seat in a bus shelter while the pregnant lady is forced to stand, but at least she gets to sit every other time that person isn't around!  I'm pretty sure if given the choice the pregnant lady would choose the option where she has to stand one out of forty times rather than have to lean awkwardly against a railing every time. 

 

Besides, I'm guessing there aren't many people in general, pregnant, or old or otherwise, waiting for the bus in the middle of the night, especially in Nashville.  Just seems like a solution in search of a problem to me, and one that creates another problem for no real reason.  I'm failing to see how removing benches and making everyone stand is supposed to be an improvement.  When you make bus shelters less inviting to the homeless, you're making them less inviting to all people.  I mean hey, why provide a shelter at all if there is the potential that it might mean a homeless person could get out of the rain!

Edited April 10, 2015 by BnaBreaker

[RonCamp]

So is there a mayoral candidate who is actually talking rail transit?  

 

This comment is not meant to be an endorsement of any particular candidate.

 

That said, Linda Eskind Rebrovick's idea of a "smart grid" traffic management system is much-needed here.  Coordination of traffic lights, with traffic cameras, in-ground and pole mounted speed and congestion monitors, etc., would be highly beneficial for the CBD / Midtown / West End area.  This likely wouldn't cost any more than the AMP was supposed to and would provide more benefit for more people.  It's surprising to me that the Nashville area does not have a traffic management system already.