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The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread


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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a request to add this topic and it makes since. Not a mass transit thread, but this is about traffic flow, problems, signals, etc. Pretty much anything to do with TDOT issues, Metro road planning issues, and sort of a catch all.

 

I think we can include air travel with concerns about BNA as well.

 

 

ENJOY

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I know my opinion isn't popular here "Downtown Interstate loop is the devil," but for decades TDOT has been widening the interstates to 8-12 lanes in the burbs and has neglected the biggest problem.  All six spokes (mostly 8 lanes or more) all converge in downtown and reduced to 6 lanes.  Downtown loop needs 8-10 lanes, and multiplexed portions (40-65, 40-24 and 65-24) should have 10-12 lanes.  Fix the bottle neck.

 

BTW; I posted some stuff over in the coffee house sub-forum about a year ago about some stuff that might be better here.  A guy over at aaroads has been attending The I-24 corridor studies; he's offered TDOT some pretty good suggestion that TDOT is apparently considering.  I don't know if this could be merged?  http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/116119-tdot/

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Good topic for discussion...

 

The phrase 'in need of widening' does drive me a little crazy....

Although some people seem to suggest that there is mixed evidence about this, I find the data overwhelming that induced demand for highway traffic is real.  Jeff Speck has been beating this drum for a long time.

 

In his book Walkable City he specifically mentions Nashville:

 

The most comprehensive effort remains the one completed in 1998 by the Surface Transportation
Policy Project, which looked at fully 70 different metropolitan areas over 15 years. This study, which
based its findings on data from the annual reports of the conservative Texas Transportation Institute,
concluded as follows:
 
Metro areas that invested heavily in road capacity expansion fared no better in easing
congestion than metro areas that did not. Trends in congestion show that areas that
exhibited greater growth in lane capacity spent roughly $22 billion more on road
construction than those that didn’t, yet ended up with slightly higher congestion costs per
person, wasted fuel, and travel delay. The metro area with the highest estimated road
building cost was Nashville, Tennessee with a price tag of $3,243 per family per year.
 
Thanks to studies like this one, induced demand is by no means a professional secret. I was delighted to
read the following recently, in Newsweek, hardly an esoteric publication: “demand from drivers tends
to quickly overwhelm the new supply; today engineers acknowledge that building new roads usually

 

makes traffic worse.”
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I know my opinion isn't popular here "Downtown Interstate loop is the devil," but for decades TDOT has been widening the interstates to 8-12 lanes in the burbs and has neglected the biggest problem. All six spokes (mostly 8 lanes or more) all converge in downtown and reduced to 6 lanes. Downtown loop needs 8-10 lanes, and multiplexed portions (40-65, 40-24 and 65-24) should have 10-12 lanes. Fix the bottle neck./

How about a really radical idea. Close completly the I-40/I-65 portion of the downtown loop and route all traffic around the east side. This would require expanding the current I-24 as well as the section of current I-40 between 24 and 65 south (an easier section to enlarge). I-40 would no longer run through downtown, it would follow I-440 (which would "dissappear"), and the current link betwwn 440 and 40 on the west side across the Fulton bridge would be a 3 numbered connector between 40 and 24/65. Besides elimination of the divide between downtown and Midtown, it would eliminate the crossover congestion that occurs on the south loop.

Edited by captainwjm
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A lament:

 

I attempted to ride the Green bus from Cummins Station to 5th & Church today for lunch and, since the routes rarely follow the published schedules, decided to begin walking and would just hop on the bus when it caught up to me. For the entire 0.9 mile walk each way, I did not see a single Music City Circuit bus going either direction. Based on the time it took to walk, I should have seen at least one, probably two! 25+ minutes between buses when you promise a 15 minute interval is unacceptable.

 

MTA, please get your act together! Road closures, events and construction are inevitable. Is this really the best we can do?

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How about a really radical idea. Close completly the I-40/I-65 portion of the downtown loop and route all traffic around the east side. This would require expanding the current I-24 as well as the section of current I-40 between 24 and 65 south (an easier section to enlarge). I-40 would no longer run through downtown, it would follow I-440 (which would "dissappear"), and the current link betwwn 440 and 40 on the west side across the Fulton bridge would be a 3 numbered connector between 40 and 24/65. Besides elimination of the divide between downtown and Midtown, it would eliminate the crossover congestion that occurs on the south loop.

just looked at a map, this doesnt sound bad. and that connector between 40 and 65/24 could be the new 440

I'm still unsure why the choice was made to widen 65 by goose creek versus widening elsewhere like briely to sam ridley on 24. According to the graph, that stretch is more heavily used than the latter. Plus, Rutherford County is the fastest growing county in question within the Metro area.

the goose creek exit was very small and out dated. and there is a lot of housing development going on near there.

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because if we spend that money in Nashville, the rest of the rest of the state feels cheated. so instead I get to visit my parents in west TN and the only time I drive on 2 lanes the entire way is in their neighborhood.

every state has this issue with the mind set of people that do not live in the capitol city or largest city, or both.  

the people of Long Island think they sent too much money to Albany and dont get enough back

the people in rural colorado think denver takes all of their money.

People in Memphis are 100% convinced that all of the Nashville area is conspiring to keep them down and take all of their money.

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because if we spend that money in Nashville, the rest of the rest of the state feels cheated. so instead I get to visit my parents in west TN and the only time I drive on 2 lanes the entire way is in their neighborhood.

every state has this issue with the mind set of people that do not live in the capitol city or largest city, or both.  

the people of Long Island think they sent too much money to Albany and dont get enough back

the people in rural colorado think denver takes all of their money.

People in Memphis are 100% convinced that all of the Nashville area is conspiring to keep them down and take all of their money.

 

You're right, and it's sad.  Every Illini that lives outside of Metro Chicago feels that way too, and Chicago isn't even the capital!  It's just kind of selfish to me though.  I'm not saying rural areas don't deserve funding by any means.  But, sorry, people of East West Bucksnort Gap, you don't deserve an equal amount of total investment to those who live in the state's capital and largest metro area.  I'd be willing to bet that on a per-person basis, those in rural areas doing all the whining get much more state money spent on projects that benefit them than do those who live in the larger municipalities.

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So...when do we stop the cycle widening the expressways every ten years, and finally invest in alternatives?  We can't just keep widening forever.  That's merely a short term solution, not to mention one that's extremely expensive.  What is the maximum amount of lanes people are comfortable with?

The downtown loop hasn't been touched (widened) since its construction in the 60's.

Edited by L'burgnative
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Also, RTA will be operating the Music City Star for NYE... Which they sold out.

You can't beat being dropped off right on Broadway at the celebration and not having to deal with traffic, parking.

http://www.musiccitystar.org

 

 

I think that the MCS really has begun to catch on for “east-county-ers”, when it comes to event travel, particularly during the last 5 five years since its Sept. 2006 inception.

But the current operating limitations (bi-directional passing provisions, equipment, frequency, accessibility,…) of that single line has certainly revealed its scalability issues, for surges in ridership during these events, especially as these events continue to grow beyond "grand".  On occasion I have been “drafted” from a small pool of volunteers called on periodically as members of a local RR museum organization, to help out as crew on those event trains.  I’ve been assigned to ancillary “conductor” duties (in basic uniform and engraved name badge) from verifying ticket-holding to announcing the stops on the train’s P.A. system for the return trip following an event, particularly on the event runs during the 4th of July fireworks celebration.

Even as far back as 2009, the MCS event train has been run at capacity (typically 4 cars max for the current platform length).  Not much can beat the relief of being totally separated from the choked streets in the SE of downtown and the stalled, listless backups of taillights along the stretches of I-40/24 east of downtown, as seen from the train windows.  Even drivers who have had this notion of bypassing the roadway “floodgates” by taking back streets which dump off toward Hermitage Ave/Lebanon Rd., find themselves getting caught at the crossings by the very train which would whisk away us “luckier” ones from that hell hole crucible of egress.

It might be a matter of suggestion for Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau to consort with the RTA and other muni-agencies and the City Council for studying feasibility and achievability in doubling the current loading facility at Riverfront from one to two stub tracks , before all the land separating the rail lead from becomes pre-empted for other purposes such as West Riverfront Park.  Currently a freight-car storage siding exists along the bluff behind Rolling Mill Hill, so the current R.o.W. easement may remain sufficient for this.  The Riverfront Amphitheater is a great thing, but just as I had stated a year ago concerning traffic issues with the Sulphur Dell Sounds Ballpark development, why not think out of the box and evaluate what’s already under the nose and in place?

I think that attendance at these venues could be made even more agreeable with having at least two tracks to handle concurrent arrival and departure of trains without having to force one train to clear the main at the Donelson Pike siding to permit passage of an opposing train on the main outbound between  Riverfront and Donelson Bowl.  In fact, during event periods, which typically don’t coincide with business and school rush hours, it would not be necessary for a region the size of Greater Nashville (not in the very near future anyway) that trains make a return trip to retrieve an additional load of passengers.  The operating overhead could be justified with running two trains, one behind another and protected with the current block signal system, each train with a load of event-bound riders, each train of which would layover on each of the two tracks, in time for the post-event return.  This way the capacity is substantially increased for patronage of those who obviously could not ride, as sellouts consistently become the norm for these types of events.  The Riverfront Amphitheater especially could benefit from the proximity of the MCS, if not as much the larger events, like NYE and July 4, could.  If in the distant future commuter rail expansion would result in migrating to a more centrally accessible location for a terminal, the current facility could be abandoned or repurposed or even minimally maintained as reserved for intermodal emergencies.  The Music City Star is by no means a “stellar” operation compared to most other US commuter-rail ops, but we do have it still, even if it only can serve one “pie” sector of the whole region.

-==-

 

Edited by rookzie
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MTA, please get your act together! Road closures, events and construction are inevitable. Is this really the best we can do?

 

I wonder if anyone else here tried to take the bus on the evening of the Christmas parade downtown, a rainy Friday. I boarded the extremely late #25 at Greer Stadium and it took me almost an hour just to get downtown, usually less than a 30 minute trip. Then another eternity waiting for a commuter bus, which was either exactly an hour late, or a bonus trip to get everyone who would otherwise be stranded.

 

I don't think the blame there can be laid entirely on MTA, but between them and Metro and MNPD, there's got to be better coordination, and communication with the public. (And is rush hour Friday really the best time for a parade?)

 

On another note, I can't find the link right now, but I see they've announced a new commuter route to Dickson, the last of two afternoon rides outbound leaves before 5pm. Another commuter route just for state workers and nobody else.

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