The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[markhollin]

WeGo is proposing some new bus routes:

https://www.wegotransit.com/community/proposed-changes/?utm_term=nashtoday&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=nashtoday&utm_content=nashtoday

[Bos2Nash]

59 minutes ago, markhollin said:

WeGo is proposing some new bus routes:

https://www.wegotransit.com/community/proposed-changes/?utm_term=nashtoday&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=nashtoday&utm_content=nashtoday

Meaningful crosstown route.

I am going to quote from the Riverside thread because this appears to be a nice expansion upon something that discussed there.

On 9/25/2023 at 3:50 PM, Bos2Nash said:

I'm glad to hear they have at least gotten the zoning taken care of for it. We have seen how long River North is taking and that is much closer to the core. River North is also teaching us that crossing the river is a very expensive and very complicated endeavor.  I believe a very early iteration of this called for a couple of bridges that the developer wanted Metro to pay for and it was immediately shot down.

With Mayor O'Connell looking more at a bus transportation system I think Trinity Lane is prime for a road diet/BRT type approach. Coming out of the North Nashville Transit Hub the bus could share the road with traffic. Turning right on to Buena Vista Pike/W Trinity Lane the bus would then move into a dedicated lane. Upon reaching I-65, the dedicated lane would end due to corridor width constraints and once again share the road until the route reaches Gallatin Pike.

Ideally the BRT would go all the way to Gallatin, but the ROW constraints are tough. Especially from Ellington Parkway to Gallatin. 

The Gallatin Pike terminus would be the hardest part to achieve, because WeGo/Metro most likely would need to buy out the Checkers and Used Car lot or the Dollar General and Cookout to serve as a terminus/turn around for the buses. It could be the Inglewood Transit hub or something like that. I would prefer the Dollar General/Cookout so that the bus could go straight through the Gallatin/Trinity traffic signal and then loop the new hub and return to Trinity via the signal. The Checkers site creates some funky turnings and traffic flows.

  The proposed 71 goes a bit further north on Gallatin to the Inglewood Kroger.

 

[markhollin]

Drivers in Middle Tennessee will have their first peek this month at which stretches of the region's highways the state sees as prime for adding express lanes that will cost money to use.

December is the month when Butch Eley, the state's deputy governor and commissioner of the Department of Transportation, pledged to present a plan for how and where to spend $3.3 billion of funding approved in the Transportation Modernization Act earlier this year.

TDOT's plan will include where the state intends to spend money to accelerate ongoing or planned construction, as well as its priorities for where the extra lanes would be built. The state is calling them "choice lanes," because the number of existing lanes would remain the same. The state would enter a contract with a private-sector partner that would help design, finance and build additional lanes which drivers would pay to use — ideally shortening their trips while easing traffic on the preexisting lanes.

"We're going to be as aggressive as we can and move as quickly as we can," Eley told Gov. Bill Lee at a mid-November state budget hearing.

Still, the choice lanes are in their infancy. TDOT's presentation at that budget hearing indicated that the department is aiming to select its private-sector partners in the second half of 2025, and cement a formal agreement for the first choice land project in 2026, after which point construction would begin.

The tolls have yet to be determined and will fluctuate based on how many drivers are using the choice lanes.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2023/12/01/roadwork-commute-highway-tdot-choice-lane-plan.html

[Nathan_in_DC]

33 minutes ago, markhollin said:

Drivers in Middle Tennessee will have their first peek this month at which stretches of the region's highways the state sees as prime for adding express lanes that will cost money to use.

December is the month when Butch Eley, the state's deputy governor and commissioner of the Department of Transportation, pledged to present a plan for how and where to spend $3.3 billion of funding approved in the Transportation Modernization Act earlier this year.

TDOT's plan will include where the state intends to spend money to accelerate ongoing or planned construction, as well as its priorities for where the extra lanes would be built. The state is calling them "choice lanes," because the number of existing lanes would remain the same. The state would enter a contract with a private-sector partner that would help design, finance and build additional lanes which drivers would pay to use — ideally shortening their trips while easing traffic on the preexisting lanes.

"We're going to be as aggressive as we can and move as quickly as we can," Eley told Gov. Bill Lee at a mid-November state budget hearing.

Still, the choice lanes are in their infancy. TDOT's presentation at that budget hearing indicated that the department is aiming to select its private-sector partners in the second half of 2025, and cement a formal agreement for the first choice land project in 2026, after which point construction would begin.

The tolls have yet to be determined and will fluctuate based on how many drivers are using the choice lanes.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2023/12/01/roadwork-commute-highway-tdot-choice-lane-plan.html

And yet again, TDOT will do literally anything other than enable people to have an option other than drive. You could double track and electrify the WeGo Star route and use the leftover to build another line to Murfreesboro for basically half of that amount.

[Luvemtall]

1 hour ago, markhollin said:

We're going to be as aggressive as we can and move as quickly as we can," Eley told Gov. Bill Lee at a mid-November state budget hearing

But yet they don’t plan on even selecting the partner until  Q3-Q4 of 2025 !!! Again putting off till tomorrow, what should have been done yesterday. This sounds like falling behind by another decade, and Nashville area probably won’t even be included ! They will build choice lanes on I-40 in Roane County, so BillyBob could get to the lake quicker!

[PaulChinetti]

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

Grabbed from this list. 3 miles, 2 tracks, 14 stops. Cost $200 million. 

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

For $3.3 Billion, The mind races, what a shame, that's like 45+ miles of track. You could get lines all over the damn place.  From the Airport to the East Bank, Rivergate to downtown, Brentwood to downtown and probably have some money left over. Hell just start with 2 lines going south and have a cross connector. Our DoT is a stuck in the past. 

[Luvemtall]

Paul, I like your thinking. Unfortunately I really do believe Nashville area will be on the short end of the stick. This is funds going to the state, they can’t even get over the airport authority issue. Their not going to play nice with metro , I can feel it.

[Armacing]

16 minutes ago, Luvemtall said:

Paul, I like your thinking. Unfortunately I really do believe Nashville area will be on the short end of the stick. This is funds going to the state, they can’t even get over the airport authority issue. Their not going to play nice with metro , I can feel it.

Davidson county can have rail any time they want... just put it up for a vote and let the Metro tax payers decide.  What's that you say?  They already did that and the tax payers voted "No"?  Well, then I don't feel sorry for them at all, and they definitely don't deserve to receive anybody else's money for rail if they are unwilling to pay for it themselves!

[PaulChinetti]

22 minutes ago, Armacing said:

Davidson county can have rail any time they want... just put it up for a vote and let the Metro tax payers decide.  What's that you say?  They already did that and the tax payers voted "No"?  Well, then I don't feel sorry for them at all, and they definitely don't deserve to receive anybody else's money for rail if they are unwilling to pay for it themselves!

Fair point. 

Spending money on roads to nowhere isn't the solution either. 

[smeagolsfree]

On 11/14/2023 at 7:00 AM, MorganRehnberg said:

This Connect Downtown report is out: 

A good collection of ideas here, but a lot of the more impactful ones are pushed out past 2030. 

Here is the link and there is absolutely nothing here and if this is all the Draft Action Plan can come up with as far as transit ideas and really on to the mayors office for the transit vote, then this will get voted down as well.

http://www.connectdowntown.nashville.gov/

These ideas do nothing to help with traffic congestion downtown. I do not understand why everyone thinks bikes and scooters are an answer. That is just BS. If you want to make down town traffic better you take cars out of the core and I am not sure how you do that other than to tell folks not to drive. You are not giving them an alternative like a free shuttle like we used to have and then you have to have a way to keep the undesirable riders off. That was the problem with the other shuttle with a lot of the homeless riding and harassing others on the buses. In Charleston they were immediately discouraged from riding from the outset.. A zero harassment policy should be enforced including anyone intoxicated, cursing, or carrying garbage bags. It should be family friendly .

I know this will be a biggie for  the  lower Broad crazies and others but do away with on street parking in the core. Endless cars driving around looking for parking contribute to traffic congestion. If they want to pursue the bike and scooter thing then this will help and for goodness sake enforce the scooter ban off the sidewalks. Sidewalks are for people and not scooters or bikes and they need to be ticketed if caught.

How many times are we going to switch streets from two way to one way. For those of you new to Nashville they have changed back and forwards several time. Depends on the mood I’d whatever mayor we have in office at the time.

[MLBrumby]

Just now, PaulChinetti said:

Fair point. 

Spending money on roads to nowhere isn't the solution either. 

Right! Somewhere over the past 35-40 years TDOT became very misguided with their "roads to every county seat".  I wouldn't argue those places don't deserve access, but as an overarching goal of road-building has been wasteful and come at the expense of keeping up with needs in high growth areas. I'm dismayed whenever I drive to Nashville (much rarer these days) and notwithstanding the overburdened (2-lane) I-24 between downtown Chattanooga and Murfreesboro... but the little narrow pass where I-24 and I-40 converge east of downtown is shamefully obsolete (dangerous) and very ugly. As I and others have mentioned, their refusal to leverage debt compounds this problem as it's been estimated that issuing bonds would enable somewhere between $80-120 million in annual operating funds (btw: that's a very low 10% leverage). Then there's the state's "Rainy Day Fund" so-called which I think is approaching $2 billion these days. Just not very wise leadership at TDOT. 

[Luvemtall]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

If you want to make down town traffic better you take cars out of the core and I am not sure how you do that other than to tell folks not to drive.

Invest some of the 3.3 billion on building a TRUE BYPASS ROUTE that completely circumvents the city. I.E finally get the I-840 North loop connected. Like I’ve previously mentioned, I have 42 years of commercial driving experience and the one Hugh flaw is having all the major Interstates converge in the middle of the city. Though traffic has no other alternative but to drive into downtown to get to the other side. And I'm tired of the route 109 thought, that’s just not going to cut it. From I-840 though Lebanon to the river , they have installed 4 new traffic lights this year and Lebanon is planning on more. Traffic moves like a snail in both directions during peak hours, so no trucks aren’t going to use it to get to points north if they don’t have local deliveries. And it’s just not trucks it’s everyone traveling on any of the Interstates, they have to go through the central city. If they can build a  highway up over the Rockie Mountains then the topography of Middle Tennessee is not a challenge. Stop making excuses and just do it !!

[BnaBreaker]

7 hours ago, markhollin said:

Drivers in Middle Tennessee will have their first peek this month at which stretches of the region's highways the state sees as prime for adding express lanes that will cost money to use.

December is the month when Butch Eley, the state's deputy governor and commissioner of the Department of Transportation, pledged to present a plan for how and where to spend $3.3 billion of funding approved in the Transportation Modernization Act earlier this year.

TDOT's plan will include where the state intends to spend money to accelerate ongoing or planned construction, as well as its priorities for where the extra lanes would be built. The state is calling them "choice lanes," because the number of existing lanes would remain the same. The state would enter a contract with a private-sector partner that would help design, finance and build additional lanes which drivers would pay to use — ideally shortening their trips while easing traffic on the preexisting lanes.

"We're going to be as aggressive as we can and move as quickly as we can," Eley told Gov. Bill Lee at a mid-November state budget hearing.

Still, the choice lanes are in their infancy. TDOT's presentation at that budget hearing indicated that the department is aiming to select its private-sector partners in the second half of 2025, and cement a formal agreement for the first choice land project in 2026, after which point construction would begin.

The tolls have yet to be determined and will fluctuate based on how many drivers are using the choice lanes.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2023/12/01/roadwork-commute-highway-tdot-choice-lane-plan.html

Hold up... am I understanding this correctly?  I feel like I'm missing something.  So the state's plan to alleviate traffic is not to take cars off the road by providing alternatives, or to provide more space for more cars by widening (which isn't a good long term solution either but at least it's something tangible)... their plan to alleviate traffic is just to turn existing lanes into lanes you have to pay to use?  How does that change anything?   At all?  And why on Earth would it cost $3.3 billion to implement that?   If anything it seems like it would just make traffic worse overall, because the amount of people that will be using that lane will dramatically decrease, and force more people onto the other lanes.  

[MLBrumby]

The CHOICE lanes are called that because they will be in addition to existing lanes. My concern is that they will be the TOTAL increase in capacity in the biggest bottlenecks. Another concern is that outdated merge lanes won’t be addressed. 

[PaulChinetti]

More lanes don’t mean more people  on the road. Does that go for toll lanes too?  Seems like it would. 

[Luvemtall]

So eventually they will get around to building these “CHOICE LANES “ (toll roads) , how many people will be willing to pay to actually use them ? Best guess maybe 30-40% , and that would likely be local commuters . You would still have the excess amount of though traffic, that wouldn’t go away. And the horrible crisscrossing merge of interstates , example I 24 comes in on the left and has to cross I40 traffic to stay on I24 and exit on the right ,I’m sorry ( no offense MidTenn) but that’s just pain dumb . Build a flyover, keep I24 to its self with a right sided exit for those needing to get onto I40 . And get rid of the truly dangerous rock outcrops that are blocking your view and in some areas just inches away from speeding traffic, seriously don’t think adding toll lanes is the solution.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Luvemtall

[smeagolsfree]

Fact of life, there will be more cars due to the fact that there are more people coming to the state and more travelers coming thru the state. The state population is growing. The problem is the state does not know how to manage the growth with the money they have. They continue to operate as a pay as you go state and setting priorities in the wrong areas of the state by building roads in rural counties where there is no population in hopes of attracting business to counties with declining population due to failed state policies like poor schools & closing hospitals, which in turn cause companies to move away or just close and people to leave those counties for the larger cities. The state in turn is trying to ignore the larger cities traffic needs where the bigger problems are for some unknown reason. 

The pay as you go model will not work forever nor will the current tax collection model. Nevada has gambling, Florida has a lot of tourism, Texas has a high property tax and I mention these states because they all have no state income tax. These are ways to supplement the income tax in those states. I do remember a time not so long ago when there was no rainy-day fund here. The state will eventually get into trouble and trying to go it alone without federal tax dollars as far as education goes could go the same for roads too. The feds could just say fine they are withholding road funds too if they do not want education dollars. It is a dangerous road to tread. Not saying it ever would happen, but it could. Then where would the state be.

The state needs to go in debt for roads in the form of road bonds to get these projects done. It will pay for itself in the long run and be cheaper. It is cheaper to build a road now than it will be to build it 20 years from now.

[samsonh]

19 hours ago, Armacing said:

Davidson county can have rail any time they want... just put it up for a vote and let the Metro tax payers decide.  What's that you say?  They already did that and the tax payers voted "No"?  Well, then I don't feel sorry for them at all, and they definitely don't deserve to receive anybody else's money for rail if they are unwilling to pay for it themselves!

There will another referendum this year. It will pass. 
 

this year being upcoming year. Mayor’s office clearly laying the groundwork for this.

Edited December 2, 2023 by samsonh

[smeagolsfree]

1 minute ago, samsonh said:

There will another referendum this year. It will pass. 

It really depends on how comprehensive it is. If it is just a Band-Aid the I don't think it will.

[markhollin]

Friend of the Forum, Lucas Hendrickson, has a nice feature in The Ledger about the luxury bus routes running from Nashville to Memphis and Atlanta:

https://tnledger.com/editorial/Article.aspx?id=171513&fbclid=IwAR0RFLWsMfXQepbP59Vc2u_81j6NZVktX24LXJ42Bwk24SNdXRwFl1IVvaU

[markhollin]

How Nashville plans to solve its downtown traffic problem with ConnectDowntown:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson/2023/12/01/nashville-department-of-transportation-mayor-freddie-oconnell-tackling-transit-transportation/71743062007/


Here's the full plan:

https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/ConnectDowntown_ActionPlan_20231112_.pdf?ct=1699905239

[nashvillain_too]

2 hours ago, markhollin said:

How Nashville plans to solve its downtown traffic problem with ConnectDowntown:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson/2023/12/01/nashville-department-of-transportation-mayor-freddie-oconnell-tackling-transit-transportation/71743062007/


Here's the full plan:

https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/ConnectDowntown_ActionPlan_20231112_.pdf?ct=1699905239

Ten years to re-stripe and paint some lanes. Pretty ambitious stuff

[smeagolsfree]

I passed along a few ideas to the mayor's office. One being to bring back the downtown circulator. It does not have to be free. I think if folks had the choice of paying a flat weekly fee of using it, they would. If I were a tourist here and knew I could take a bus instead of Ubering or walking to places I would do it. Especially if the price were reasonable. You make sure the top attractions are on the stops and folks are able to use their debit or credit cards as their bus pass.

You make the one-time user fees cheap enough to encourage use and the passes cheap enough to encourage folks to buy them. This also would discourage the vagrants from using the service and harassing people which was the case with the free service. I would also like to see an increased number of service routes to East Nashville and maybe WeHo along with the Music Row and Germantown area included with the circulator added at a later date. They could also include express buses leaving for BNA and Opryland from the same location as the same location as the downtown circulator. 

Again, scooters and bikes are not for everyone.  I wish they would do an age study to see how many people by age use these. No matter what you do with scooters and bikers downtown Nashville, you will have a high percentage of out-of-town drivers the pay no attention to those modes of transportation and you will continue to have high numbers of injuries with that mode of transit. Due to the type of protection, it offers it is not a safe way of transportation. Riders are not responsible, and drivers are not responsible. This is not Europe and there is no city in the US with a high number of bike and scooter riders that can replace mass transit. I dare anyone to name one. Portland is the only major city to meet that mark and it has mass transit. Bikes and scooters are not a mode of mass transit. It is a mode or personal transit like an automobile and to suggest that is an end to a means is stupid. Ubers and taxis are not mass transit. It is alternative transportation and does not in reality take cars off the road. It is just the same car doing multiple trips but the same number of trips. Same number of trips and gas being used. Maybe even more.

I am not against scooters and bikes but to push them as a main form of transit in Nashville is foolish. Just as Nashville may not be designed for rail it is not designed for bike either as the it is a car centric street congested city that relies on cars. You have too many miles of roads to go and Nashville is too sprawling for it to make sense. Only the most avid bikers will take advantage of the opportunity. Scooters are just dangerous, and most riders are irresponsible based in what I have seen from the idiots riding them downtown. On the greenways there are a lot of folks that ride bikes too fast and blame pedestrians for getting in their way which should be the other way around. The greenways are for pedestrians first, bikers second, and scooters never. E Bikes are another story as they can go way too fast for the greenways and their speed should be enforced but E bike riders many times ignore the rules because they think they are special. Most can go up to 28 mph but some can go up to 40 mph. The higher speed bike is limited and may be illegal to own.

 

Interestingly the largest cities with bike and pedestrian commuters are not large cities and to think that folks are going to bike and walk to their jobs are not backed upped with data according to what I see here:

Largest cities with most pedestrian commuters

List of U.S. cities with most pedestrian commuters - Wikipedia

Largest cities with the most bike commuters

List of U.S. cities with most bicycle commuters - Wikipedia

Surprisingly Nashville's transit system did not rank the worst according to a 2019 study coming in at number 66 ahead of Houston, Raleigh, KC, (Charlotte and I do not know how), and Indy at dead last at 100.

Cities with the Best & Worst Public Transportation (wallethub.com)

 

 

[MontanaGuy]

2 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

You make the one-time user fees cheap enough to encourage use and the passes cheap enough to encourage folks to buy them. This also would discourage the vagrants from using the service and harassing people which was the case with the free service.

I completely agree with that.  I took the bus for many years to downtown Seattle and when the bus got into the free zone they would have a few homeless people every morning who got on the bus.  Not all of them cause trouble but some are dangerous and sometimes harass people which is one of the main reasons that many commuters hate taking the bus in the first place!    

[PaulChinetti]

I took a scooter last month from midtown to the gulch. It was fairly pleasant, I stayed off main roads that a tourist wouldnt know to do though. More people could do it safely if we had any form of protected bicycle infrastructure.

We’ve been getting better pedestrian infrastructure for years though but it seems to be picking up recently. 

I wound still love to see the breakdown of projects that were completed from all the sidewalk fund money.