The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[titanhog]

^^So does this mean if we want any type of commuter rail service from the burbs, we'll have to acquire all new ROW and lay all new rail lines?  If this is the case, maybe the mono-rail thing isn't out of the question (if we're going to spend that type of money).

[MidTenn1]

Of course my focus was on the elephants in the room; light rail and street cars. As best as I can read from the maps, here are the proposed routes for Light Rail and street cars.

I like the Charlotte Avenue/Pike line. It is already developing fast. I rode the Charlotte, NC CATS line last week and the amount of 'build it and they will come', Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is incredible. Take all the Nashville new residential and put it in the hottest Charlotte TOD district, The Stonewall District, and that's what's happening and what would happen in Nashville on Charlotte Pike with light rail.

However, I would like to see a spur go directly to the Airport Terminal on the Murfreesboro Road line.

And North Nashville still gets nothing. Are the powers that be in Nashville totally brain dead? An oversight like this, no matter how if it's justified demand wise, could cause political and support problems 'down the line' (pun intended).

 

The street car line...

It was hard to tell what was happening downtown. But I think this is better on Broadway/West End than the original BRT proposal. It might be a little more acceptable in that it is a little more 'sexier', having a street car rolling up the road from the Honky Tonks past Music Row and Vanderbilt up to 31st. And it won't bring 'those people' toward Belle Meade, so maybe the objections from that canaille won't be so loud. And I suppose the street cars can share traffic lanes more readily than the BRT was going to, so there may not be as much objection to the traffic issues.

Edited January 24, 2016 by PHofKS

[smeagolsfree]

If your interpretation is correct, they are not doing light rail into Murfreesboro. What the heck! That is the busiest corridor and will continue to be.

[MLBrumby]

Where did you get the closeup maps?  Thanks.

So the streetcar route would no go anywhere near the Music City Central station?  Why not go up Fifth Avenue and to the ballpark?  Seems to me that would be less disruptive to traffic patterns and take advantage of the MCC station.  But then what do I know?  I have no background in transportation planning.

Not to mention that line up 5th would also serve Bridgestone Arena and Lower Broad.

[MidTenn1]

1 hour ago, MLBrumby said:

Where did you get the closeup maps?  Thanks.

So the streetcar route would no go anywhere near the Music City Central station?  Why not go up Fifth Avenue and to the ballpark?  Seems to me that would be less disruptive to traffic patterns and take advantage of the MCC station.  But then what do I know?  I have no background in transportation planning.

Not to mention that line up 5th would also serve Bridgestone Arena and Lower Broad.

I looked all over for a better map, including the MTA website, which incredibly did not have even have a mention of the new plan. So I scrolled and zoomed in with my mouse on the NBJ graphic;

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2016/01/light-rail-super-fast-buses-nashville-transit.html

I was able to pick up some detail. Maybe MPO will get around to providing a higher resolution map with the downtown area illustrated. There is a little box over the downtown area of the map such that you can't see what is proposed downtown (hence the question marks on my diagram). 

I agree about 5th Avenue, although the streets a too narrow north of Jefferson Street. And I would extend it to Bordeaux.

I toured Atlanta and Charlotte last week and took notice of the street cars installed and underway, and noticed particularly, that the loss of vehicular lanes is minimal.

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

If your interpretation is correct, they are not doing light rail into Murfreesboro. What the heck! That is the busiest corridor and will continue to be.

As far as I could tell, the light rail terminates around Old Hickory Blvd. Looks like they will depend on BRT to complete the journey. Waiting on a better map, but I think I read this one fairly well by zooming in on the original.

Edited January 24, 2016 by PHofKS

[BnaBreaker]

I worry that not extending rail, be it light rail or commuter, all the way to places like Franklin and Murfreesboro, might kill any interest from most people who have some intrigue about switching from commuting by car to commuting by transit.  The reason I suspect this is because the initial switch in their  general mindset along with their daily patterns and routines is going to take someone who isn't used to riding transit to their limit.  To then tell those people that they'll also have to transfer twice a day in between on top of that might be just enough to cause them to throw their hands in the air and say 'why bother, it's too much hassle.'

[rookzie]

PHofKS, you kill me with that reference to 'those people' toward Belle Meade ─ hits the funny bone for sure.  As far as a generalized proposal is concerned, they won't get very far on it, without some major tweaking, for certain, especially since some but all of the LRT paths shown in the graphic cross jurisdictional lines, but clearly need to be built out.  There need to be planned from the start, full connections to all "nominal" destination termini, like Murfreesboro.  I always felt that Music City Central should never have been placed in it current location in the first place, and that plenty of missed opportunities would have been more amenable to handling centralized transit, than the chosen spot, which seemed not to have been part of a well informed master transit plan to consider all elements such as narrow streets and accessibility.  Instead it seems that the only focus was to get the buses away from the open air of Deaderick Street.

I also believe that this plan won't fly without some considerable tweaking to better represent the core areas of the under-served, particularly in the North and the near East.  That's almost imminent if not certain.  But I cannot make out much of anything from the small graphics provided to become conclusive.  It has to be expected that, along with the naysayers, there will be definite wrangling and tugs-of-war on selections of path proposals to serve different core districts ─ make no mistake about that.

The Light Rail proposed routes clearly are purposed as alternatives to railroad-type commuter rail, and if planned and designed for frequency and interconnectivity at mini-hub interchange points, then LRT can employ practices and operational characteristics of commuter rail and local rapid.  But if they planning for the long run, then they need to go Whole Hog on ambition and not skimp on the big things like airport connections and Murfreesboro.  Again  as MLBrumby mentioned, the State itself needs to garner the political will to become proactive in an initiative which ultimately would include either CSX or an interstate R.o.W. corridor for the most congested commuter flows.  The state actually be included in the planning proposal, just as governments of some other states have helped to drive the expansion of long-range transit activity.  The state itself has to show commitment as well, in order to make the case for dedicated and competing funding sources. -==-

[Hey_Hey]

I've generally been underwhelmed with the NMotion process. As opposed to NashvilleNext, I don't think the NMotion process yielded any information that we didn't already know.  

The final report that was released looks essentially the same as what many of us were proposing two or three years ago. We didn't need a year of meetings and studies to tell us that we need mass transit lines to Mufreesboro, Franklin, Clarksville, and Hendersonville.  We knew prior to NMotion that we needed more cross-town routes. The first 6 months were spent learning that people want frequent, reliable, and safe service......that's an important learning point because I thought for sure people were looking for unreliable, infrequent, and dangerous service. 

I'm also disappointed that there is no mention of interstate rail to Murfreesboro and Franklin. I just don't see the taxpayers in those areas willingly paying for only bus-on-shoulder, and we are going to need the entire region to jump in and pay for a comprehensive system. We absolutely must design a system that suburbanites can get excited about, and I don't think this does that at all. 

Lastly, I see zero evidence that any out-of-the-box thinking went on.  Aerial tramways, airport connections, subscription based transit, preparation for autonomous cars, concrete plans for ride sharing collaboration, etc.

Maybe I was expecting too much.  

Edited January 24, 2016 by Hey_Hey

[MLBrumby]

I also fear faddish thinking that would be better served looking at what's worked in cities of similar size going through similar growth... and not necessarily just the new latest-greatest thing.  Where has BRT been implemented in a sunbelt city as spread out as Nashville?

[rookzie]

19 minutes ago, Hey_Hey said:

I've generally been underwhelmed with the NMotion process. As opposed to NashvilleNext, I don't think the NMotion process yielded any information that we didn't already know.  

The final report that was released looks essentially the same as what many of us were proposing two or three years ago. We didn't need a year of meetings and studies to tell us that we need mass transit lines to Mufreesboro, Franklin, Clarksville, and Hendersonville.  We knew prior to NMotion that we needed more cross-town routes. The first 6 months were spent learning that people want frequent, reliable, and safe service......that's an important learning point because I thought for sure people were looking for unreliable, infrequent, and dangerous service. 

I'm also disappointed that there is no mention of interstate rail to Murfreesboro and Franklin. I just don't see the taxpayers in those areas willingly paying for only bus-on-shoulder, and we are going to need the entire region to jump in and pay for a comprehensive system. We absolutely must design a system that suburbanites can get excited about, and I don't think this does that at all. 

Lastly, I see zero evidence that any out-of-the-box thinking went on.  Aerial tramways, airport connections, subscription based transit, preparation for autonomous cars, concrete plans for ride sharing collaboration, etc.

Maybe I was expecting too much.  

I'm totally on-board with you, Hey_Hey.  And that's the very reason I rolled eyes at the publishing of the recent conclusion that CEO Steve Bland released on the use of CSX freight lines.  Absolutely nothing about that assessment is revealing, nor is it resolving or insightful, for the same reasons that you state.  At best, all this nMotion "marketiing" is but a formality to acclimate the chief to some baseline and to document a sense of "transparent" interactive engagement ─ the term "transparent" having to be qualified.  If nothing else, this is perhaps arguably might be perceived as an improvement of the process during the previous administration.

Steve himself repeatedly has claimed the urgency of planning what the people have shown they want overall, formalize it, and then put it up for funding considerations, whether it gets built in full or not.  I'm not sold on a consensus that the people do not want a connection to Murfreesboro or Franklin or Gallatin or Dickson.  Again, I cannot make out the graphic details to form a solid conviction.  And I've always pushed looking at the successes and flops of other cities with startups and expansions, as those regional systems are far more documented and critiqued now than they were during their initial planning stages.

[Vrtigo]

I generally agree with the above as well, but we also have to consider the context particularly with regard to the AMP debacle.

As we all know quite well at this point, one of the chief complaints from opponents of the AMP was the lack of transparency and open communication about the process. We here as invested followers of transit and development happenings know quite well what needs to occur and have a firm grasp on what would engender its success and/or failure, but that doesn't mean the general population is equally informed. I have gathered from following the nMotion initiative, that it really is not going to reveal any great revelations to us "nerds"--nor was it intended to. It's really just a massive PR campaign and educational opportunity.

Any time you involve a larger population in a given dialog, the implementation timeline also grows exponentially. We can all hope to see grand proposals and revolutionary changes for our city's transportation initiatives, but also need to be realistic about how long it will take to get our less-informed peers up to speed.

[PruneTracy]

2 hours ago, Vrtigo said:

As we all know quite well at this point, one of the chief complaints from opponents of the AMP was the lack of transparency and open communication about the process. We here as invested followers of transit and development happenings know quite well what needs to occur and have a firm grasp on what would engender its success and/or failure, but that doesn't mean the general population is equally informed.

I think I've noted on here before that the concern over transparency for the Amp stems from the name changes. The planning process included a ton of public involvement, meetings and charrettes and such, it was just done under the banner of the "Broadway-West End Corridor Study", or after it was extended to Five Points, the "East-West Corridor Study". As these are both terribly unsexy names, and the end product was still very nebulous, public participation was minimal.

[Vrtigo]

46 minutes ago, PruneTracy said:

I think I've noted on here before that the concern over transparency for the Amp stems from the name changes. The planning process included a ton of public involvement, meetings and charrettes and such, it was just done under the banner of the "Broadway-West End Corridor Study", or after it was extended to Five Points, the "East-West Corridor Study". As these are both terribly unsexy names, and the end product was still very nebulous, public participation was minimal.

Fair points, for sure. It's all semantics in the end, but I can certainly sympathize with them.

When you're hosting a generic "Broadway-West End Corridor Study", you are absolutely correct that nobody cares. When you clearly state that you are designing a mass transit project that will radically transform this same corridor, people absolutely come out of the woodwork with commentary and opinions to share.

Definitely emphasizes the need for transparency in the naming of the initiative/study/project, as well.

[MLBrumby]

State legislature moving to help transit plans in Nashville (and other cities)... http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/31/state-could-key-nashville-regional-transit-hopes/79345672/

[Vrtigo]

1 hour ago, MLBrumby said:

State legislature moving to help transit plans in Nashville (and other cities)... http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/31/state-could-key-nashville-regional-transit-hopes/79345672/

I'm crossing my fingers that Haslam will point out the need for regional infrastructure as part of the #SotS address this evening...

[smeagolsfree]

Ketron pulling for monorail and possible Fairgrounds location for transportation hub.

 

http://www.nashvillepost.com/politics/article/20489156/ketron-pulling-for-monorail-wants-publicprivate-partnership-to-pave-the-way

[VSRJ]

5 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Ketron pulling for monorail and possible Fairgrounds location for transportation hub.

 

http://www.nashvillepost.com/politics/article/20489156/ketron-pulling-for-monorail-wants-publicprivate-partnership-to-pave-the-way

Monorails are for Disneyland and Las Vegas. But I'm selfishly in favor of a transportation hub at the Fairgrounds, as it's right down the street from me.

I really wish we could have a Chicago Metra-esque heavy rail system, but I know that's a pie in the sky. Light rail would be a nice compromise.

[Hey_Hey]

Monorail may be for Disney Workd, but at least Ketron is talking about a rail system. Monorail to realistic elevated or surface rail is not a big change.  

Getting a Republican in Tennessee to even mention state support for a mass transit system is a huge improvement from years past. 

[markhollin]

More reporting from The Tennessean on state lawmakers eyeing private sector to help with mass transit:

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/02/03/lawmakers-eye-private-sector-boost-regional-transit/79779324/

[bigeasy]

What exactly is the difference between monorail and light rail? I guess I am ignorant on the subject because I have always considered them to be the same outside of the actual rail system. So why would you be against a monorail but for a light rail? Wouldn't they both perform the same?

[VSRJ]

6 minutes ago, bigeasy said:

What exactly is the difference between monorail and light rail? I guess I am ignorant on the subject because I have always considered them to be the same outside of the actual rail system. So why would you be against a monorail but for a light rail? Wouldn't they both perform the same?

Monorails are typically elevated and consist of a single rail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorail

The rails are often (not always) giant, elevated concrete guideways that aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Monorail

Light rail systems, on the other hand, are typically closer to the ground and more closely resemble traditional rail systems. They often use trolleys or tram-style vehicles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail

The two are certainly similar concepts, but I'd much rather drive (or walk) alongside a grounded rail as opposed to a giant concrete beam towering overhead. But either would certainly help our transportation woes.

Edited February 4, 2016 by VSRJ

[Rockatansky]

BRT in dedicated ROW would provide service very similar to LRT or Monorail at 1/3 the cost per mile.

[Neigeville2]

7 hours ago, VSRJ said:

Monorails are typically elevated and consist of a single rail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorail

The rails are often (not always) giant, elevated concrete guideways that aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Monorail

Light rail systems, on the other hand, are typically closer to the ground and more closely resemble traditional rail systems. They often use trolleys or tram-style vehicles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail

The two are certainly similar concepts, but I'd much rather drive (or walk) alongside a grounded rail as opposed to a giant concrete beam towering overhead. But either would certainly help our transportation woes.

I guess it's matter of opinion, but I like the look of elevated trains much better then trains on the ground, and I'd rather walk or drive next to a train that isn't going to run over anybody.  Trains in the street are a dumb idea.  They hit cars, they hit pedestrians and they get stuck in traffic.

6 hours ago, Rockatansky said:

BRT in dedicated ROW would provide service very similar to LRT or Monorail at 1/3 the cost per mile.

But probably fewer than 1/3 as many people would be willing to ride it, so it isn't really cost effective.  BRT has worked well in poor third world cities like Jakarta or Bogota.  I don't think it's a first world solution.

[Neigeville2]

Check out youtube for plenty of reasons not to have trains running at grade.

Comparison between LRT and monorail

 

I think this looks pretty cool:

Edited February 5, 2016 by Neigeville2
add picture

[VSRJ]

1 hour ago, Neigeville2 said:

I guess it's matter of opinion, but I like the look of elevated trains much better then trains on the ground, and I'd rather walk or drive next to a train that isn't going to run over anybody.  Trains in the street are a dumb idea.  They hit cars, they hit pedestrians and they get stuck in traffic.

I think cars are much more likely to run over pedestrians than trains. But I agree, it's a matter of preference and opinion. Chicago's L system is an example of an elevated system that works. It's not the most appealing, but it works in the very dense, urban grid it weaves through. I like trolleys (and in-street trams), but I think they're more appropriate for short routes where the need for speed isn't as great. Memphis' trolley system (if it ever returns) is a great example. It's more useful for tourists, though -- definitely not a mass transit replacement.