The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[Edgefield D]

Maybe I missed this somewhere, but does anyone know what the staging is for that's taking place at the I-24/Spring Street Interchange? 

[smeagolsfree]

I noticed that the other day. Not real sure, although they are supposed to do work on the Fern St. overpass at some point, but this is a little far a away.

[Edgefield D]

This morning I noticed they put one of those collapsible barriers on the westbound side of Spring Street right before you go under I-24. But, they have completely scraped all the grass off on each of the 4 parts of the cloverleaf. Hmm...I'm intrigued. I might look at the TDOT website and see if anything is listed there. I'll report back if I find anything.

[Salbato]

Here are some of the TDOT projects in Davidson County for 2017-2019 and 2018-2020

http://www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/program-development-and-administration-state-programs

 

[bigeasy]

4pm and this is what we have already....Shame that this changes my plans so often. Many days I refuse to hang out with friends/family simply because I don't want to sit in my car for an hour plus to go 15 or so miles. Not even joking, I will tell my parents no for dinner because of this. Sometimes it takes me 1 1/2 hrs to go from Brentwood to their place in Hermitage.

https://goo.gl/photos/vojKtXrTPdJPWV6G6

Edited May 12, 2017 by bigeasy

[rookzie]

On 5/12/2017 at 4:09 PM, bigeasy said:

4pm and this is what we have already....Shame that this changes my plans so often. Many days I refuse to hang out with friends/family simply because I don't want to sit in my car for an hour plus to go 15 or so miles. Not even joking, I will tell my parents no for dinner because of this. Sometimes it takes me 1 1/2 hrs to go from Brentwood to their place in Hermitage.

https://goo.gl/photos/vojKtXrTPdJPWV6G6

Of course, then too, Friday afternoon, that drivers became spooked with "dampness" on the windshields only exacerbated the Cant-Get-There-From-Here syndrome of the region.

I'm glad that someone else can empathize with my trying to make people realize that I simply am not going to "let" them talk me into a situation where I get mad as Hell and predictably stuck in traffic going nowhere fast, and all that they can say is, "Well, we can just wait for you.  It shouldn't take TOO long."  That won't be happening again anytime soon. ツ

Edited May 14, 2017 by rookzie

[titanhog]

California transportation expert says Nashville is making the wrong move with light rail and could potentially hover near bankruptcy for years if fully implemented.

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2017/05/17/expert-if-nashville-builds-light-rail-city-could.html

[nashvylle]

I honestly prefer BRT (with dedicated lanes in some areas or at certain times). We could implement and connect the entire city within a year and at 1/10th the cost. 

[PruneTracy]

2 hours ago, nashvylle said:

I honestly prefer BRT (with dedicated lanes in some areas or at certain times). We could implement and connect the entire city within a year and at 1/10th the cost. 

And move the routes as future growth dictates.

Alas, to paraphrase the consensus from the Amp studies, only poor people ride the bus.

[AUNash]

California transportation expert says Nashville is making the wrong move with light rail and could potentially hover near bankruptcy for years if fully implemented.
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2017/05/17/expert-if-nashville-builds-light-rail-city-could.html

Ok so I haven't studied this and my opinions may not be fully informed, but I wonder why there is the notion that a transit system has to operate at a profit. Yes, a functioning transit system may always require government operating and capital subsidies. But isn't that the case with many elements of public infrastructure that we already take for granted and that nonetheless contribute to economic vitality and support the overall economic activity of a city? So, streets for example. Don't we have to pay taxes to have roads paved and for traffic lights to be installed? So why is a transit system considered as different somehow? If a transit system is going to support the ability of people to move around the city, getting back and forth to their jobs and so on, isn't that something that is worth public investment on an ongoing basis?

[titanhog]

3 hours ago, AUNash said:

 

Ok so I haven't studied this and my opinions may not be fully informed, but I wonder why there is the notion that a transit system has to operate at a profit. Yes, a functioning transit system may always require government operating and capital subsidies. But isn't that the case with many elements of public infrastructure that we already take for granted and that nonetheless contribute to economic vitality and support the overall economic activity of a city? So, streets for example. Don't we have to pay taxes to have roads paved and for traffic lights to be installed? So why is a transit system considered as different somehow? If a transit system is going to support the ability of people to move around the city, getting back and forth to their jobs and so on, isn't that something that is worth public investment on an ongoing basis?

 

I haven't read the article since it's still locked...but with the headline stating that we'd basically be bankrupt if we went that route, that's a little different than not operating at a profit.  Of course, it's just one man's opinion...and maybe the article isn't as bleak as the headline sounds.

[PruneTracy]

6 hours ago, AUNash said:

Yes, a functioning transit system may always require government operating and capital subsidies. But isn't that the case with many elements of public infrastructure that we already take for granted and that nonetheless contribute to economic vitality and support the overall economic activity of a city? So, streets for example. Don't we have to pay taxes to have roads paved and for traffic lights to be installed? So why is a transit system considered as different somehow?

 

 

Highway infrastructure is generally paid for with user fees (e.g., gas taxes, etc.). You drive on the roads, you burn gas, you pay for the roads. You don't, you don't. There are exceptions to this rule—local streets not improved with state and federal funding, the various bailouts of the Highway Trust Fund—but even these could be covered with proposals like vehicle-miles traveled taxes and/or pushing transportation agencies towards a public utility model.

It wasn't that long ago that transit agencies were expected to cover their costs, as a rule. For that matter, it wasn't that long ago that they were privately-owned and -operated. The current paradigm of transit agencies requiring government subsidy as a matter of course (as opposed to a consequence of overly-optimistic ridership projections, not that those have disappeared) has only been in existence a couple of decades.

In the philosophical sense, should we be providing transit in this manner, with the assumption that it provides a public good worth the cost? I dunno. I will say, as someone in the business of developing transit plans, that it introduces the practical problem of agencies, customers, and other stakeholders swinging for the fences.

Nashville's transit master plan is just one example: most, if not all, of the proposed LRT lines could instead be implemented with BRT at the same level of service for a fraction of the cost. But the question asked by stakeholders is not "What tools do we have that serve our customers most efficiently?" but "What tools do we have that the feds will pay for?" And the feds don't care, they will foot the bill for LRT just as they will BRT and they barely make you justify it.

Then you enter into the issue of vanity. As I noted above, the prevailing opinion is that only poor people ride the bus; therefore, the agencies reason, we have to build rail to attract more ridership. Except they don't really attract that many more people, certainly not enough to justify adding a zero to the construction and maintenance cost, and as those extra riders are no longer expected to cover the cost of their usage we all end up effectively using our tax money to accommodate a small group's hang-ups about being seen riding a bus.

If we want to be in the business of providing transit as a public service, we'd be better off using vouchers or some other mechanism to subsidize transit fares while forcing agencies to price their services to capture everything they need to run them. It's really the only way we can get honest assessments about our transit needs.

[Vrtigo]

19 hours ago, PruneTracy said:

Then you enter into the issue of vanity. As I noted above, the prevailing opinion is that only poor people ride the bus; therefore, the agencies reason, we have to build rail to attract more ridership. Except they don't really attract that many more people, certainly not enough to justify adding a zero to the construction and maintenance cost, and as those extra riders are no longer expected to cover the cost of their usage we all end up effectively using our tax money to accommodate a small group's hang-ups about being seen riding a bus.

To add a bit of color to this assessment, I used the bus to get home last Saturday on the Dickerson Pike line and had some interesting experiences along the way. 

My point of departure was Music City Central. For lack of a better description, the whole place just felt grimy and in need of a good pressure-washing; there was a good amount of trash and litter strewn about as well. The lighting throughout the facility was somewhat inadequate and felt more like hanging out in an old, grungy parking garage than a primary transportation hub. Was panhandled once, but otherwise left alone.

Seeing as how this is the central hub for almost all buses in Nashville, one would expect the bays to be clearly labeled and with obvious signage directing you to which would take you to your desired bus line. While there was indeed a digital marquee at every bay indicating its primary line and its next departure, there was no comprehensive map that I could see which would direct a novice rider as to which of the 30+ bays was theirs, or even how to get there. It's been long enough since I have used this facility that in the moment I forgot that there was a lower level which housed additional bays, missed my desired departure because of my confusion, and then had to wait an additional 30 minutes for the next departure. I consider myself a seasoned patron of public transit, use it whenever practical while traveling, and even just returned from two weeks in Madrid/Barcelona where I never had any difficulty understanding their systems which were in another language! Suffice to say that this was not simple ignorance of, or inexperience with the concepts involved.

When the next coach arrived, it took nearly ten minutes to fully board because of the line of riders waiting to depart (maybe 15 people?) and the inefficiency in which the payment transaction system operates. Once aboard, I was struck by the amount of trash littering the interior of the bus. There is clearly a general disregard by the ridership regarding keeping the interior clean and tidy, as well as a lack of regular, routine cleaning that occurs throughout the day while the bus is in service. My fellow riders mostly kept to themselves, but several were having loud and rather obnoxious conversations on their mobile phones, or with each other, with expletives frequent enough to make one blush.

Finally, I was in the clear minority as far as skin color and/or (presumed) economic status among my fellow passengers. (I absolutely do not intend to imply any racial bias or other similar undertones by these remarks, but hope simply to illustrate the facts.) 

It is not unreasonable to think that any one of these factors by themselves have a significant effect on those who choose to patronize Nashville's transit system. When you compound them all together, it's easy to see where the stigma comes from, and it isn't much of a stretch to get the impression that Nashville clearly isn't doing much to try to improve upon that stigma surrounding its transit system or ridership.

When looking at the Bus vs. Rail argument through this lens, it's much easier for me to understand why many believe that starting fresh with rail seems to have a much higher chance of success than trying to improve our bus system.

[Guest]

Think of the Fed monies for LRT in the same manner as that of the Obama Care funding for Medicare expansion that was recently offered to the States. The Feds giveth and the Feds taketh away.....and the mandate remains. No federal money, yet the Nashville taxpayer will be on the hook for ever increasing operational, capital and expansion cost for the LRT system. That is where the author's bankruptcy headline originates.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Guest

[Dale]

On ‎5‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 5:52 PM, nashvylle said:

I honestly prefer BRT (with dedicated lanes in some areas or at certain times). We could implement and connect the entire city within a year and at 1/10th the cost. 

Not sexy. Not a civic feather-in-the-cap. BTW, Orlando's commuter rail looks nice, but is such a white elephant that it is cheaper to run it for free than to charge for it.

[grilled_cheese]

I really wish they would update the payment method.  The disposable card or cash methods are terrible. 

[Guest]

I believe all points to be valid, but #6 speaks to the "will bankrupt Nashville" discussion...

9 Reasons Few Americans Use Transit

[Pyramid Scheme]

33 minutes ago, nashville_bound said:

I believe all points to be valid, but #6 speaks to the "will bankrupt Nashville" discussion...

9 Reasons Few Americans Use Transit

There are a lot of good points in there. I still can't help but think how nice it would be to live in an inner city and could get most of my necessities on foot, or if I need, use the Metro. It looks like that may be turning into a dream for me.

[BnaBreaker]

Mr. O'Toole of rural Oregon is certainly entitled to his opinions on things he doesn't personally have a use for.  There were certainly some points in there that weren't intentionally misleading or hyperbolic and had a healthy dose of truth to them.  For example, it is definitely true that if you don't own a car and you purchase a new dining room table, you're better off getting it delivered than to try and fit it on the train, although, I really don't see how that's reason to not invest in transit.

However, as someone who actually uses public transit almost every day and lives somewhere with a built environment that makes it possible to not be enslaved to the automobile if one chooses not to be, I must disagree with the crux of Mr. O'Toole's argument.  Personally, I find mass transit to generally be incredibly useful, convenient, cost-effective, and contrary to Mr. O'Toole's belief, an experience decidedly devoid of a feeling that I am being demeaned.  

Let me outline some of the potential benefits from using mass transit (why do I feel like I'm advertising for a time share? lol.)  For one, it affords one the opportunity to relax or get some work done as opposed to having two hands on the wheel at all times.  Depending on the destination, it is often much faster than waiting for red lights and traffic jams to clear up, which opens up extra time at home, not to mention the fact that it makes your commute CONSISTENT in length.  No more having to call in late because there was an accident on the Kennedy.  Using transit is also safer.  Please don't make me pull out car crash statistics!  They're incredibly depressing.  Aside from all that, using transit on a regular basis is simply *WAY* cheaper than owning a car, and it's really not even remotely close.  That's money you can spend on living life instead of buying a new muffler.  I mean, if you're commuting to and from work everyday in a car, you might as well deduct several thousand dollars from your pay check every year, because that's what is required for you to get to work and back, and that's just for basic maintenance.  Also, and this is purely subjective of course, but I enjoy the feeling I get when using public transit of actually being a part of a real, living, breathing community of human beings where everyone is more or less in the same boat.  I may not be conversing with or making friends with everyone on that train, but it's a lot more difficult for me to see my fellow passenger as an 'other' that can't be trusted when I look them in the eyes and share a ride with them every day.  That isn't a feeling I get when riding alone in a glass pod in a sea of other people who are also riding alone in their own glass pods devoid of human interaction. 

Now, full disclosure, all that being said, I'm also a single man who is currently living alone, and I realize my situation is quite different than someone with, say, a family of four who may find it more useful just to own a van.  So, I get it.  Relying on mass transit for day to day transportation may not be ideal for everyone.  But surely, at the very least, we all certainly experience times in our lives where we would find it useful to not have to worry about a car.  That's what makes the investment worth it, in my opinion.  Contrary to popular sunbelt opinion, public transportation really is for everyone.  Mr. O'Toole's argument that we shouldn't fund transit because Americans don't use transit falls flat on it's face for me simply due to the fact that most Americans simply don't have access to good transit to begin with.  Most of us either live in a place that is not designed with transit in mind, or in a place that doesn't adequately fund transit, or in a place that has no mass transit altogether.  So I mean, all of those factors taken into consideration, of course most Americans don't use mass transit.  But that has little to do with the merits of transit itself.  He might as well be trying to make a case as to why most Americans don't use chopsticks to eat their food.

Edited May 24, 2017 by BnaBreaker

[jmtunafish]

4 hours ago, nashville_bound said:

I believe all points to be valid, but #6 speaks to the "will bankrupt Nashville" discussion...

9 Reasons Few Americans Use Transit

i believe some of those points are valid.  But his 10th point is so misleading, I want to scream.  He claims that Europeans don't use public transportation much more than Americans:  34 miles for an American per year vs. 89 miles for a European per year.  What he is totally ignoring is that Europeans also ride bikes and walk.  He says that the average American drives 12,600 miles per year, but he doesn't say how many miles a year the average European drives.  I bet he doesn't mention it because it's miniscule.  Europeans, generally, much prefer to use public transportation, walk, or ride bikes than to drive.  Even those who have cars routinely use public transportation.  My old college roommate and his wife have 7 kids and live in a far-flung suburb of Paris in a pavillon (single family detached home), and they own two cars.  But they also take the bus, the RER, ride their bikes, and walk.  It's just a way of life over there.   I lived in 9 different cities in France and Belgium and had a car, but I still used public transportation or walked most of the time.  I loved the freedom of having the choice.

 

[Flatrock]

10 hours ago, jmtunafish said:

But they also take the bus, the RER, ride their bikes, and walk.  It's just a way of life over there.

This. I've lived in Italy, Britain and Japan....used local, regional, national and transnational trains extensively -and walked a TON - as did many  people I knew. This, of course, begs a solution to another Nashville problem : the first/last mile. With public transport; sidewalks and bike-able streets are cornerstones that must be put in place - first.

[dmillsphoto]

12 hours ago, jmtunafish said:

i believe some of those points are valid.  But his 10th point is so misleading, I want to scream.  He claims that Europeans don't use public transportation much more than Americans:  34 miles for an American per year vs. 89 miles for a European per year.  What he is totally ignoring is that Europeans also ride bikes and walk.  He says that the average American drives 12,600 miles per year, but he doesn't say how many miles a year the average European drives.  I bet he doesn't mention it because it's miniscule.  Europeans, generally, much prefer to use public transportation, walk, or ride bikes than to drive.  Even those who have cars routinely use public transportation.  My old college roommate and his wife have 7 kids and live in a far-flung suburb of Paris in a pavillon (single family detached home), and they own two cars.  But they also take the bus, the RER, ride their bikes, and walk.  It's just a way of life over there.   I lived in 9 different cities in France and Belgium and had a car, but I still used public transportation or walked most of the time.  I loved the freedom of having the choice.

 

I spent an hour trying to type something like this yesterday. Every time I thought about the absurdity of "Europeans don't use it much," I couldn't seem to focus enough to get a coherent thought out. 

[jmtunafish]

1 hour ago, Flatrock said:

This. I've lived in Italy, Britain and Japan....used local, regional, national and transnational trains extensively -and walked a TON - as did many  people I knew. This, of course, begs a solution to another Nashville problem : the first/last mile. With public transport; sidewalks and bike-able streets are cornerstones that must be put in place - first.

Very good points.  It's fine and dandy to have a bus stop in my neighborhood, but if I  have to walk through the grass or even on the road to get to the bus stop because there's no sidewalk, I'm probably not going to do it.  That's what infuriated me the most about Knoxville's paltry bus sytem; bus stops were often identified by a simple "bus stop" sign stapled to a telephone pole.  No benches, no shelter, no sidewalks.  And we wonder why people don't use the bus more.

I will say another stark difference between European (and, increasingly, Asian) mentalities and American about private cars vs. public transporation is that in Europe/Asia, if someone drives it's because s/he wants to drive.  Here in the US, it's usually because s/he has to drive.  Even when my family lived in Hong Kong, we owned a car, but not because we had no other option.  We just liked having a car.

[Guest]

The last-mile observation is valid, in fact I will post a picture later that demonstrates the chaos involved trying to improve the connectivity.

I agree the article includes some opinion based on anecdotal evidence. For example, I wish he has footnoted or sourced the conclusion -
 

Quote

For all these reasons, just 5 percent of American commuting is by transit while 86 percent is by car. When all travel is counted, transit represents less than 1 percent of the total. Yet transit subsidies per passenger mile are 50 to 100 times as great as subsidies to driving. The solution is not to increase subsidies for one form of travel or another but to end all transportation subsidies and let people choose how to get around based on the real costs of travel.

I will try to track down these numbers. If they prove accurate, the facts buttress my existing misgivings regarding the wisdom Nashville's 6+ Billion dollar transit plan.
 

2 hours ago, Flatrock said:

This. I've lived in Italy, Britain and Japan....used local, regional, national and transnational trains extensively -and walked a TON - as did many  people I knew. This, of course, begs a solution to another Nashville problem : the first/last mile. With public transport; sidewalks and bike-able streets are cornerstones that must be put in place - first.

 

[AronG]

Planning for Gallatin light rail from the mayor's presentation: