The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[Luvemtall]

2 hours ago, Bos2Nash said:

While I typically agree with the majority rules arguement, In many ways within the world of urban development, the majority is a senseless mob that has no idea what they want/talking about. Similar to the folks who scream NIMBY at the folks against density (or tall buildings), folks have the recourse to scream NIMBY who are against a complete transit (ALL transit, not just Mass Transit) infrastructure. Nashville needs to improve their Mass Transit system, for sure, but we also need to improve our overall transit system. 

Brother I’m with you, I’m really for all these changes mentioned here over the last few days. I can picture a city as you and many vision , all my years driving this country has been an eye opening experience. Yes , for sure the priorities of the masses are tainted, brainwashed IMO to a skewed narrative. I’m just voicing my concerns and opinions that it’s going to be very hard to overcome this mindset and get enough people on board to make the change. Right now the political landscape has unfortunately made things harder, so many are focused on revenge for even minute differences that it’s interfering with sound judgement as we have witnessed that with the bad blood between The State and Metro. I just feel that without getting bipartisan cooperation and support from everyone involved, it’s impossible for this country to get to where we want to be.

[smeagolsfree]

13 hours ago, Luvemtall said:

15 hours ago, Bos2Nash said:

While I typically agree with the majority rules arguement, In many ways within the world of urban development, the majority is a senseless mob that has no idea what they want/talking about. Similar to the folks who scream NIMBY at the folks against density (or tall buildings), folks have the recourse to scream NIMBY who are against a complete transit (ALL transit, not just Mass Transit) infrastructure. Nashville needs to improve their Mass Transit system, for sure, but we also need to improve our overall transit system. 

This also comes with upzoning which the NIMBYS are against in most areas of town. If we start upzoning to denser neighborhoods and allowing more height, more multi-family, denser corridors, mass transit and other forms of travel will make more sense especially closer to the core. The problem is the younger Nimby's. I do not know where the hell these folks are coming from. I can see the folks my age that are dead set against change, but they just need to get over it. The younger ones are the ones I do not understand. You would think they would be all for change and better transit. 

[yontu2]

People opposing non-automobile mobility options annd infrastructure are somewhat different than NIMBYs.

How about NIMROWs?

(Not In My Right Of Way)

[Luvemtall]

Whatever moniker they choose to be, if they don’t like dense, tall, big city vibes, they have the freedom to move wherever they’re comfortable. 

[Nash_12South]

I'm for mass transit, and mass transit options, but education of folks is the key. What does Nashville mass transit look like now? Buses slowly moving down roads making stops every 100 yards. Why would average folks, of any age, opt for that over their own car? Most folks have no frame of reference for speedy bus lanes or light rail. When doing anything toward mass transit is presented as taking away something (traffic lanes) they use now, I think winning them over is hard. 

[MontanaGuy]

1 hour ago, Nash_12South said:

I'm for mass transit, and mass transit options, but education of folks is the key. What does Nashville mass transit look like now? Buses slowly moving down roads making stops every 100 yards. Why would average folks, of any age, opt for that over their own car? Most folks have no frame of reference for speedy bus lanes or light rail. When doing anything toward mass transit is presented as taking away something (traffic lanes) they use now, I think winning them over is hard. 

The key problem is that your car can go from your home directly to any location that has a road to it which is pretty much anywhere whereas there's no mass transit system that can do that.  In order to make mass transit competitive it's going to have to have transit centers within a reasonable distance to most of the population in a metro area, be able to quickly move you to a central hub (probably near or in a downtown area) and then move you to another transit center that's very close to your destination.  That's no small task and it's still going to probably require you to drive to a park and ride.  Sitting in slow moving traffic in a car by yourself is still the only way of getting to most destinations.  The only time I had access to fast mass transit was when I moved to an apartment next to a park and ride location in Seattle that had express buses that went right downtown which was a short walk to work.  Our existing design of bus routes is a joke and will only work for a very small percentage of commuters who happen to live near one end and work at the other end.  

[PaulChinetti]

I think once the subsidization of parking starts changing, no more parking minimums for example, free and crazy cheap parking everywhere will start to dwindle. 

People would balk at the price of parking if wasn't subsidized as much as it is.

 

This isn't a complete thought, I had more but got distracted and forgot, oops.

[MontanaGuy]

7 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

I think once the subsidization of parking starts changing, no more parking minimums for example, free and crazy cheap parking everywhere will start to dwindle. 

People would balk at the price of parking if wasn't subsidized as much as it is

That won't offer drivers any other alternative to driving, it will just make driving more expensive and annoying than it already is.  We need to redesign the whole transit system!   

[nashvillain_too]

8 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

I think once the subsidization of parking starts changing, no more parking minimums for example, free and crazy cheap parking everywhere will start to dwindle. 

People would balk at the price of parking if wasn't subsidized as much as it is.

 

This isn't a complete thought, I had more but got distracted and forgot, oops.

The amount that governments have directly and indirectly subsidized the cheap storage of cars has not been reckoned with by anyone except obscure academics until very recently. The abolition of parking minimums throughout the UZO was a crucial first step and I hope Metro Council can keep up the pressure somehow--parking maximums, eliminating on-street parking and/or smart pricing based on demand, and UZO-wide upzoning. I just wish we could move more quickly on this which is why I'm so disappointed in the 10-year time frame that NDOT has laid out for Connect Downtown. 

 

10 minutes ago, MontanaGuy said:

That won't offer drivers any other alternative to driving, it will just make driving more expensive and annoying than it already is.  We need to redesign the whole transit system!   

It's impossible to have both. If you want a reliable transit system, you have to start making driving and parking more difficult

[MontanaGuy]

5 minutes ago, nashvillain_too said:

It's impossible to have both. If you want a reliable transit system, you have to start making driving and parking more difficult

I strongly disagree with that.  It sounds like you want to punish drivers for simply trying to get where they need to go without presenting a reasonable alternative.  For most drivers in the Nashville metro area they simply have no other way of getting around except for driving.  You might also consider the fact that having a hostile attitude towards those drivers will also cause a feeling of mistrust in the general public towards mass transit in general.  I commuted for many years in a few different cities and like many people I chose mass transit where it existed and drove in cities where it didn't! 

[Luvemtall]

Just as MontanaGuy mentioned, trying to punish people because they choose to drive isn’t the answer. This harks back to my above statement on today’s political landscape, it’s just not the obvious blue-red rhetoric but apparently on every issue. Yeah, having a great multi modal transportation network including ALL forms of transit be it walking, biking, rail, bus and yes automobiles is essential for a healthy environment and I do agree that this city, state and country are failing on multiple levels. But these harsh statements about making it more expensive and prohibiting parking to those who choose to drive are absurd. this is supposed to be a democracy for all the people, to have the right to choose their own decisions based upon their choices. If you disagree with something, find another solution, but don’t be negative or hateful and try to punish others for their choices. 

[PaulChinetti]

Nobody is trying to punish anyone. Just want to stop subsidizing parking. If someone wants to drive, I'm all for it. 

It is not the cities job to provide anyone a cheap place to park.

[nashvillain_too]

Reducing or ending subsidies for parking isn't a punishment nor is it hateful. Ya'll are ones who are making the debate hysterical and polarized by using that kind of rhetoric. I understand that taking away subsidies is unpopular but it's not a punishment. It's a correction to an unequal situation and it's an incentive to change behavior. As Paul said, local governments don't have any sort of obligation to provide cheap parking although they've certainly taken on the job, much to everyone's detriment. 

Making it harder to drive in the city is absolutely necessary to improving the built environment, to making it safe, quieter, walkable, and amenable to transit. I understand that a transition to that reality will be difficult, but nothing worth doing is easy

[Nash_12South]

As long as we want folks to work and come come downtown - we need cheap parking. If you took away the subsidized/free parking options (downtown) companies couldn't hire workers and would relocate to free parking suburbs (Brentwood/Cool Springs). As others have said - once this fantastic transportation system is designed, approved and being built discussions can begin on ways to "encourage" people to use it. 

[PaulChinetti]

The companies can provide parking or pay for parking for their workers. 

[nashvillain_too]

1 minute ago, Nash_12South said:

As long as we want folks to work and come come downtown - we need cheap parking. If you took away the subsidized/free parking options (downtown) companies couldn't hire workers and would relocate to free parking suburbs (Brentwood/Cool Springs). As others have said - once this fantastic transportation system is designed, approved and being built discussions can begin on ways to "encourage" people to use it. 

Big companies are providing their own parking to workers and if they aren't, they should be. The city doesn't need to continue to do it. All that parking takes up a tremendous amount of space. Space that could be used to house people. Space for transit lanes. It's also valuable real estate that is not maximizing its value for the city and for property owners by being underutilized to store private property at absurdly low rates. 

[Nash_12South]

My understanding is that the city helps provide parking for many downtown companies on metro land. (like around Nissan stadium) The companies do provide parking to their employees with metro helping. I may be misstating the relationship but that is what I have heard. 

[Bos2Nash]

2 hours ago, MontanaGuy said:

The key problem is that your car can go from your home directly to any location that has a road to it which is pretty much anywhere whereas there's no mass transit system that can do that.  In order to make mass transit competitive it's going to have to have transit centers within a reasonable distance to most of the population in a metro area, be able to quickly move you to a central hub (probably near or in a downtown area) and then move you to another transit center that's very close to your destination.  That's no small task and it's still going to probably require you to drive to a park and ride.  Sitting in slow moving traffic in a car by yourself is still the only way of getting to most destinations.  The only time I had access to fast mass transit was when I moved to an apartment next to a park and ride location in Seattle that had express buses that went right downtown which was a short walk to work.  Our existing design of bus routes is a joke and will only work for a very small percentage of commuters who happen to live near one end and work at the other end.  

The reason it is so easy to move around via car is because our transportation system nationwide has been designed around the car for 3/4 of century. So of course it will be easy when you have that level of investment from such a high level. Due to this kind of investment we then created our own problem with the sprawl because land got cheaper and cheaper away from the core and then folks had to drive in to the city for work/play, thus creating the demand for car space. Some larger cities at least had public transportation starting back in the early 1900's, so the idea/concept of mass transit was in place, but when you look at newer cities, that idea/concept isn't there, so the amount of investment is two or even three fold because there is multiple components. Education, getting the idea across in a reasonable manner. Design, essentially clawing back ROWs to incorporate these transportation ideas. Implementation, many cities that are looking at transit now are in lower tax states which equals lower service which in turns making funding all that more difficult. That last one specifically makes it incredibly difficult to execute transit. Which only highlights that when a city as control to do something that shows an investment in a network, we should be doing it.

One could very easily argue that if you live within the red circle below (Briley Parkway), you absolutely should NOT have to drive to a park and ride to access transit. Every transit system in our country struggles with "last mile" portions of their system. That was part of my post above about making streets calm enough to walk or ride. In talking with folks at the Gallatin Pike public workshop we talked alot about this. In some cities, that last mile is taken care of by a separate bus line that connects to a train, but in a city that only has buses, making a transfer to a different bus is viewed as cumbersome, even if it is essential. Maybe this means we have more routes similar to what the new 71 route will be. A main trunk line can reach a certain point and then branch off to different routes to provide closer to that "last mile" no Mass Transit system will be able to do door-to-door service, but if we have calm, safe streets along those last mile areas, that last mile is much more manageable.

2 hours ago, MontanaGuy said:

That won't offer drivers any other alternative to driving, it will just make driving more expensive and annoying than it already is.  We need to redesign the whole transit system!   

1 hour ago, MontanaGuy said:

I strongly disagree with that.  It sounds like you want to punish drivers for simply trying to get where they need to go without presenting a reasonable alternative.  For most drivers in the Nashville metro area they simply have no other way of getting around except for driving.  You might also consider the fact that having a hostile attitude towards those drivers will also cause a feeling of mistrust in the general public towards mass transit in general.  I commuted for many years in a few different cities and like many people I chose mass transit where it existed and drove in cities where it didn't! 

That is a very easy thing to say while also maintaining the status quo. If we sit around and just wait for a whole system redesign, I'd say my future grandchildren will be lucky to see that. We have to start working toward solutions now. And while making parking more expensive and/or less convenient may seem like punishment, another way to look at it would be a balancing of the scales.

People are completely capable of choosing to drive in a city. But like Paul mentioned above, it isn't the responsibility of the city to subsidize that choice. The city is responsible for finding the most equitable solution for their city's needs. As outlined above - countless times - the improvement of our transportation system is an equity thing. If you choose to drive your car, fine. But know that the city should absolutely prioritize an equitable solution. Our equitable solution here is Nashville is finding a way to have safe passage for Cars/Buses/Walker/Cyclists. Cars are 25% of our equitable network, yet they dominate probably 95% of our ROWs. This isn't a war on cars (though some do subscribe to that mantra), but rather understanding that living in an urban environment takes a completely different approach than suburban or even rural lifestyles.

23 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

As long as we want folks to work and come come downtown - we need cheap parking. If you took away the subsidized/free parking options (downtown) companies couldn't hire workers and would relocate to free parking suburbs (Brentwood/Cool Springs). 

We absolutely do not need CHEAP parking. I totally understand needing/wanting parking, but it certainly does not need to be cheap! Many companies that are downtown already have parking for employees and it is negotiated into their leases. If a company chooses to move their business because of parking, that is their prerogative. I would be willing to bet though that more companies see a very high value of being in a downtown, even if they are paying higher parking rates. If a private developer or corporation wants to provide parking, let them. Zoning laws are in place (or should be enhanced) to ensure that parking is not a detriment to the urban environment and then that developer can charge a market price for said parking. 

Much like living in an urban environment has a cost associated with living around the conveniences that an urban environment brings. Choosing the convenience of driving a car within that same urban environment comes with associated costs. Those costs could be monetary like paying for parking, or they could be time sitting in traffic because that urban environment chose to invest in public ROW that works for all modes and not just one. 

23 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

As others have said - once this fantastic transportation system is designed, approved and being built discussions can begin on ways to "encourage" people to use it. 

And how do you propose we get there if every opportunity to work on our network folks come up with every excuse to not to do it? Because I am seeing some pretty solid options up thread, but they are being shot down for very lame reasons. It is hard enough to push for (or even advocate *gasp* bad word) for transit options if the folks who clamor for better developments can't even get on the same page with understanding that we NEED these transit options if we want said better developments. 

7 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

My understanding is that the city helps provide parking for many downtown companies on metro land. (like around Nissan stadium) The companies do provide parking to their employees with metro helping. I may be misstating the relationship but that is what I have heard. 

While I believe you are correct, I believe there is an associated fee attached to such agreements. Whether that agreement is with specific companies or building owners or what, I have no idea though. But it should not be an expected obligation for Metro to discount those rates.

[nashvillain_too]

4 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

My understanding is that the city helps provide parking for many downtown companies on metro land. (like around Nissan stadium) The companies do provide parking to their employees with metro helping. I may be misstating the relationship but that is what I have heard. 

That is definitely the case but it's also a specific scenario which comes out of the existence of the stadium and the lease agreement between the Titans and Metro. I wonder how/if that arrangement will change with the new stadium

[Bos2Nash]

2 minutes ago, nashvillain_too said:

That is definitely the case but it's also a specific scenario which comes out of the existence of the stadium and the lease agreement between the Titans and Metro. I wonder how/if that arrangement will change with the new stadium

I would say we are going to see much less (if not entirely gone) as the stadium agreement only requires about 400 surface parking spaces (appears to be located at the northeast corner of site plans) for stadium use such as load-in and load-out and probably athlete type parking. The other lease required parking spots are going to be within developments around the stadium so that will presumably have a private building owner (because Metro will only own the land) setting the parking rates. 

This is a pretty radical idea, but maybe the intent of the East Bank would be to tie into an overall transportation network that would move people from those parking spots to their office building or a location adjacent/near to their final destination. Anybody know of such a system being implemented anywhere?

[Nash_12South]

Metro charges the companies, but the companies (at least those I'm aware of) provide the parking free to employees - at the distant lots.

If you want respect for your views, try giving some back. 

[nashvillain_too]

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by nashvillain_too

[Nash_12South]

1 minute ago, nashvillain_too said:

People are worthy of respect but viewpoints have to be based on sound arguments to be worthy of consideration. 

Ouch, point proven. Have fun folks, time for a break. 

[Luvemtall]

October 1904, New York City’s subway system started operating. The NorthEast Corridor is connected with trains ,buses and the like . the infrastructure is vast yet they still don’t have the magical solution , to safely connect a workable network of bike lanes and traffic calming solutions for every neighborhood. I understand some of the frustration and I hope that someday things change for the better. But unless anyone here is under the age of maybe 10, don’t expect to ever be able to use this fully completed network you all talk about. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m with you on almost all of these issues. But the reality of it all is although it may one day be and I surely hope that it is , don’t expect it to be anytime soon. 

[Luvemtall]

19 minutes ago, nashvillain_too said:

People are worthy of respect but viewpoints have to be based on sound arguments to be worthy of consideration. 

Why do you imply that some of us, don’t have sound arguments? Do you think that everyone of your post and comments are just a perfect statement and we should all agree with your opinion? Don’t think so, we all have the same rights to make our voices heard and our viewpoints deserve equal respect, regardless if you agree or disagree. To disagree is one thing, to disrespect is another.