Can Nashville Pull Off a $5.2B Transit Makeover?
citylab.com
citylab.com
As for the support from outside Nashville proper, I think that all of my friends and coworkers who live outside the city have much more to gain from a transit system that extends outside the county. My commute is pretty reasonable, a consistent 15-20 minutes. My coworkers in Williamson, Rutherford, or Cheatham Counties all have significantly longer commutes. I'm not saying support is a given, but for all the people who talk about Nashville turning into Atlanta, it's not those of us who live inside Davidson County that have the most to lose.
(I also live in Davidson county and even ran for school board).
I would welcome rail from here to Nashville, I don't get up there much primarily due to traffic. I've lived in many places, including Manhattan and San Francisco, and I sorely miss the convenience of the train.
Simply put, rapid transit would be great for commerce in Nashville and it would either alleviate in some way or at least mitigate traffic congestion that will be compounded by the rapid growth of Nashville's suburban communities. I think costs of extensions into these communities should be shared, but ultimately funding rapid transit through sales tax makes sense because commerce/tax base should increase.
Anyway - just came here to give some perspective - don't get the impression that Williamson County, Tennessee is full of racists. It is not as diverse as Davidson County, but nonetheless a wonderful place to live.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm anxious to see how autonomous cars will affect situations like the one facing Nashville.
This alone might make it appealing to take normal methods (car or autonomous car) into the city for leisure.
Ah but what will that effect be? There's nothing about a self-driving car that increases road capacities. And since a self-driving car doesn't get bored or frustrated, there's less of a disincentive for a self-driving car to drive during rush hour. So it seems like if all else remains equal, self-driving cars are going to make traffic worse, not better (sure, if you could combine them with ride-sharing, they might reduce things but lyft and Uber right now could be ride-sharing but they aren't. No reason to expect a self-driving taxi would better unless something impels it).
Now, if these self driving cars were high passenger capacity, that might have a great effect- but of course then we'd just call them a bus.
Yes, there are state-level politics involved, but there are a LOT of Nashville residents that are strongly against this plan on the grounds that it will be outdated and under-utilized before it is ever completed.
The Mayor's PR machine and the local Chamber are working hard to create support for this proposal, but it will be an uphill battle and will likely fail with the voters.
One could make the argument that the proposal, in that case, was outdated because it didn't recognize that much of the growth in Austin is in the east and southeast of the city. It was based on assumptions about where people live and work that aren't current. And, many made the case that it was based on serving the wealthy, mostly white, population of Austin, especially a few real estate developers, while the poorer, mostly latinx, population would continue to be poorly served by Cap Metro buses and would likely see fare increases because of the new construction.
So, even if one believes a particular transit technology, whatever it is, is technically sound and will last decades (e.g. the NY subway, which has likely paid for itself many times over since its construction and continues to serve the city, despite being very old and in need of updates and new construction), it may not be forward-looking on logistical matters. If you build a train, bus, light rail, nuclear submarine, hyperloop, whatever, that nobody rides, you haven't solved any problems for the city, you've just incurred debt.
I'm in favor of mass transit, of course. The more, the better. But, I surprisingly found myself on the opposite side of the recent Austin rail measure because of the reasons mentioned among others.
Again, I have no idea what's going on with Nashville. I've only visited. Just sharing how one might oppose a transit initiative without believing self-driving cars will solve everything in five years.
We also feel that ride-share will continue to expand. We don't have any pooling services (yet), but that is also inevitable.
The other big complaint is that this is one 25 mile train from one side of town. But we aren't a coastal city like Seattle (where public transit is doing well). We have 3 major interstates (i24, i40, and i65), so that means there are bedroom communities in 6 directions from town. And m at least one of those (i65 south of town) has a two-way rush hour due to so many people living in Nashville and working in the south suburb (Brentwood / Franklin). Of course, that is not where the train is going b/c that is the wealthiest suburb and they don't want a train.
So, shuttling in a few people from one side of town into an urban core with a lackluster hub/spoke bus system inside the city, isn't going to do much.
The strongest argument for Mayor Barry's proposal seems to be "We have to do SOMETNING, so let's do this."
Is there a train layout that would be much more attractive?
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/10/26/nashville-un...
It won't do much, but it might do a little. If 1% of that 18% takes the train any amount of their commute, it can have a significant impact.
I'm in Atlanta. Only about ~5% of our metro population uses the train. But that's 200k people. If the alternative is most of those 200k people and they're each individually a car taking up about 50sq feet (10x5) -- you can bet our traffic would be much worse.
I've always been very pro public transit, and always vote for anything related. Maybe 5 years ago, in the after math of our monorail project being sabotaged, with the rise of ride sharing and perhaps autonomous automobiles, I decided the era of Big Bang public transit projects was coming to a close.
Recently, our fledgling light rail, 20 years in the making, finally opened a station near the university, and now ridership along the whole system far exceeds all the projections. Woot!
So I get the "too little, too late" sentiment. But I think I was wrong for believing that.
As a Tennessean who wouldn’t mind moving to San Francisco, I’m curious if you can share any of your reasons? I haven’t noticed many tech benefits in Tennessee over SF beyond lower cost of living.
I loved San Fran on my first visit then I stayed at a hotel on Market st and visited Haight Ashbury..omg!
Washington also has no income tax, has a 6.5% sales tax, and King County (containing Seattle) has 3.6% sales tax.
My suggestions to improve would be better funding for light rail, dedicated lanes for buses that other vehicles can’t enter, priority access at intersections, and a congestion charge to enter the core (“The Loop”).
EDIT: Dropped "light" from "light rail system".
While I'm less well versed in the governance issues of the MTA, it seems as though control should be passed back to local voters, as the NYC subway has been dealing with a fair amount of issues as of late also, and it appears the governor and mayor can't agree on who's fault it is and who should fix it.
We see a gross form of state's forming supra-state policy in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, but with NPVIC each state is working on it's own to pass the compact, each state it's own independent stakeholder, whereas if you want to get DC, MD, and VA and other local regionals voting to fix WMATA, I believe there needs to be some supra-democratic structure the states can form.
It hasn't broken down too many times, and is reliable enough that many New Yorkers don't own a car (which IMHO is the gold standard for trust in a public transit system).
I suspect there are more people in Nashville using ride-share than are using public transit.
The costs vary wildly along each of those segments.
$5 billion to build new tunnels? That's a bargain. Along rural ROWs? That's a boondoggle.
Why? They do it with elevators don't they? I recall when all elevators had operators - yes a person in the car to push the floor button.
This evolved from old systems with a hand operated cable line with a window the operator put his hand into to pull up/down and to level the car. This led to elevator operator unions, and strikes - which led to fully automated push button elevators when the unions got whiney and greedy. Operators were getting $50,000+ for riding and pushing buttons. .
So the were all left out in the cold and courts supported automated elevators.
Then there were the movie projector operators, relics of the carbon arc in the old days. Now fully automated digital projection rules this work place,
Today most US mass transit is controlled by public authorities which are like a .gov/corporate hybrid.
Telecom has similar problems, but went a different route, where AT&T was able to secure a monopoly to build out the network in exchange for public utility status and some regulatory strings. Since privatization, telecom has gone back to that model to deliver long-term profit, gobbling up cable and media. Except this time they are dumping the public utility part.
I don't know what they are paid, but it is worth every penny for them to manage the elevators. There is not enough "supply" of freight elevator in most tall buildings, so these operators distribute the capacity to the dozens / hundreds of people needing to use the elevator each day.
$50k per year is a bargain for all the time they save for the thousands of deliveries and other uses each year.
If you have experience in this area, then I should not say this: it's easy to criticize some work as useless when one is totally ignorant of the problem space. But buildings don't hire these operators as a charity.
I think a $50k employee can be more responsive / adaptable than a computer program whose administrative credentials are misplaced 2 weeks after installation. And probably cheaper, too.
We now have a new system where you go in and push what floor on an external pad and the system tells you what car to go to.
Able bodied individuals weren't leaving the priority seating to make room for a disabled person. So the operator first reminded people to make room. After that failed he threatened to leave his cab and make someone leave their seat. A computer couldn't do that. At worst it could halt the train until the cops showed up, which would probably be a sub-optimal way to handle asshole passengers.
There was police activity causing a halt to all train service. As a result the operator manually connected their train with one that was already in the station so the passengers could leave.
Another situation involved a sick passenger. The paramedics forgot to alert the operator they had picked up the passenger, so the operator had to verify everything was taken care of before departing. In an emergency the paramedics may not have the time or ability to coordinate with central control or whoever oversees the system.