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The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread


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17 minutes ago, nashville_bound said:

You guys retake everything way too personally....maybe less attacking me...

I'll just present the above quote without further comment.  You can reflect on it or not as you see fit.

I'm sorry that you feel personally attacked apparently--which comment was it that was "too strong for your sensibilities"? In any case, backing up your "groupthink" insult with "fanboy" doesn't really help your case from where I'm sitting.

As for your transit concerns, you're of course welcome to ask all the questions you want, but it shouldn't be that big of a surprise when no one cares to respond thoughtfully to your issues given that you're carelessly tossing around casual insults with your own brand of "sophistry."

 

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4 hours ago, nashville_bound said:

The bottom line is that no one on this board should be 'all-in' for the regional transit plan almost none of the details required to implement said plan have been released. Of the 3 offered plans this board exploaded with support of the $6B plan on day one....and some even suggested that the plan go farther. On what basis other that groupthink....{fanboy} could such a decision be made? And I will not that I the questions I posted on day-one of the headline have yet to be answered.

trolling? If that is what you call asking questions and sounding a warning then sure, I am trolling.... maybe concert ticket prices should be taxed to pay for the mass-transit plan....who would be trolling then? You guys retake everything way too personally....maybe less attacking me and more asking questions of the transit authority...so we can get something built that we can afford, support and utilize.

nashville_bound (Todd), I know you aren't necessarily singling me out.  As far as the transit subject is concerned, I've always regarded your opinion as, not only valid, but also vital for the purposes of check-and-balance in dialog.  Indeed they are legitimate concerns, as a high ratio of cost overruns has become a norm, if not "the" norm these days, while municipalities rush to grab funding in a game of catch-up, when all along they arguably would have been better served with long-range prioritizing and implementing during at least three decades in the past.

I totally concur with the feeling of vagueness of the cost-plan "alternatives", if they could be called that, because it confers a sense of intangibility and sense devoid of resoluteness.  We have no details which would even partially corroborate a price-tag of 6 billion, which in its own right may not account even close to the true cost of planning and construction spread out over a "reasonably" orchestrated period of implementation.  Rather, it seems based on an all-at-once proposition, as if that were even possible, much less practicable.  It's as if consultants and analysts have created this theoretically ideal nominal figure, which then would be expected to be fulfilled by picking only certain "groceries from the shelves", without having evaluated the ramifications and parameters based on a given combination of real-life scenarios peculiar to each segment of the mission.  It certainly can be learned from experience, the nightmares that other municipalities have undergone with the disruption of too much at one time, although so far there's been no discussion of or consideration for tunneling, either open construction or boring, if and wherever that may be feasible.

I don't think any other city with publicly funded construction has ended up throwing up for grabs a single projected and firm 25-year cost target, from start to finish, even though the planning tends to be ongoing, as required.  Even Austin, which has had a long-range plan in compliance with federal MPO mandates, has focused on planning and implementation of a single corridor to start, as part of long-range goals scalable over time.

Edited by rookzie
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Should I repost all of my [unanswered] questions every time I post...even though they are earlier in the thread? If that works then sure. However , I have posted them several times and there was little appetite on the board to discuss... the reality interferes with the cheerleading. 

I am puzzled the you toss aside the comparison of the two projects  so quickly. A 50% cost overrun is the same regardless of the total cost...in Nashville's case an extra $3BIL. 

So you favor the most expansive plan without knowing if the facts as presented are accurate? What if it ends up costing $2BIL more and taking twice as long to build. What if the funding mechanism hurts the very growth that is driving the need for mass transit. What about a competing study that runs the numbers on other, more modern and cost efficient, emerging modes of transportation? 

It is very much a zero sum game. The $6BIL and political energy required to impliment the grand plan will naturally preclude any other solutions. So while I agree that something will need to done, I require any successful proposal to be transparent and any mode selected to be future proofed.

Of course, the larger point is that these projects seem to be increasing sold to the populace utilizing imaginary figures (costs, construction period, ridership) brought to the table by highly compensated consulting firms....funded by the very people/organizations that benefit from a very 'optimistic' interpretation of the data. 

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15 hours ago, grilled_cheese said:

It's obvious that the boomers want no part of transit.  Sad really.  Thankfully the boomers are slowly but surely unable to make it to the ballot box.

That's an offensive and bizarre comment. I'm a Gen X'er and don't want to see more taxpayer money pissed away on expensive boondoggles. We need to be looking to the private sector for solutions to any such problems as transportation/mass transit issues.

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36 minutes ago, fieldmarshaldj said:

That's an offensive and bizarre comment. I'm a Gen X'er and don't want to see more taxpayer money pissed away on expensive boondoggles. We need to be looking to the private sector for solutions to any such problems as transportation/mass transit issues.

From what I understand transit in Japan is private, but different lines are run by different companies and they don't appear on the same charts which can make it really confusing to get around Tokyo if you don't know the different rail lines intimately. Maybe something like that could work if there could be some cooperation with charts and maps being able to change lines at stations.

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Here is yet another example of technology lessoning the urgency for old-fashioned rail/light-rail.
 

"One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year."

Flying Car-Share Tech - Airbus

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Totally disagree with the viewpoint that there are not any options...in fact just browsing the last several pages in this thread brings several potential options to light....at least options that need to be considered.

As far as the assertion that those opposed to Nashville mass-transit (aka those who want to properly spend their money confiscated by the government as taxes) will cease to vote as the die-off (no worries I am Gen X and have many.many more years to vote) ....I think this election proves the old paraphrased Burke adage - 

" He who is not a liberal at twenty compels one to doubt the generosity of his heart; but, he who, after thirty, persists, compels one to doubt the soundness of his mind." 
 

But to restate my point for the umpteenth time... just saying that spending 6BIL is the only option and taxes are going to go up anyway is the reason our nation in $20,000,000,000,000 in debt.

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18 hours ago, nashville_bound said:

Should I repost all of my [unanswered] questions every time I post...even though they are earlier in the thread? If that works then sure. However , I have posted them several times and there was little appetite on the board to discuss... the reality interferes with the cheerleading. 

Have you considered posting a separate thread dedicated exclusively to discussing these questions? Your unanswered questions are a relevant and vital part of this dialog, but your experience shows that in general use catch-all threads such as this one, our attention span is far too brief for us to give them the fair-shake they deserve.

I for one absolutely agree that our chosen top-tier plan is deserving of some serious scrutiny, but I just as strongly believe that we're already late to the game, and we can't afford unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape slowing things down any further than absolutely necessary. There has to be a sensible middle ground.

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3 minutes ago, Vrtigo said:

Have you considered posting a separate thread dedicated exclusively to discussing these questions? Your unanswered questions are a relevant and vital part of this dialog, but your experience shows that in general use catch-all threads such as this one, our attention span is far too brief for us to give them the fair-shake they deserve.

I for one absolutely agree that our chosen top-tier plan is deserving of some serious scrutiny, but I just as strongly believe that we're already late to the game, and we can't afford unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape slowing things down any further than absolutely necessary. There has to be a sensible middle ground.

We are most definitely "late to the game."  That's part of the reason that we are looking at spending $6 Billion and it's probably not going to feel like we've gotten our $6 Billion worth when it's all said and done.  Mass transportation is as much a state-of-mind as it is a tangible congestion-breaker.  For this reason, we should have been spending a larger chunk of our budget yearly to continually bolster mass-transportation efforts...but not so much that the public would balk ($6 Billion).  Smaller bites over a long-term with citizens slowly seeing the benefits and beginning to change their habits would have been a better approach than what we're about to do.

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6 hours ago, nashville_bound said:

Here is yet another example of technology lessoning the urgency for old-fashioned rail/light-rail.
 

"One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year."

Flying Car-Share Tech - Airbus

I doubt every citizen will be able to afford this, nor will enough people use it to offset the current traffic situation. 

Edited by nashvylle
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6 hours ago, nashville_bound said:

Here is yet another example of technology lessoning the urgency for old-fashioned rail/light-rail.
 

"One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year."

Flying Car-Share Tech - Airbus

I understand wanting to hold our planners accountable so that tax dollars aren't wasted, but are you really suggesting flying cars as a reason to just put off implementing a mass transit system? I'm down for looking into cutting edge technology and how it can solve traffic problems, but flying cars will never happen realistically due to concerns of cost/affordability, safety, and just the fact that they wouldn't make sense in a dense urban area. People on the cutting edge of technology like Elon Musk have spoken as to why the flying car will never be a reality. By your logic, I would think that you would be much more comfortable with a tried and proven to be successful rail system as opposed to a completely unproven new technology. Zeppelins were considered by many to be the next big thing in cities and we all know how that turned out. 

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10 hours ago, Philip said:

From what I understand transit in Japan is private, but different lines are run by different companies and they don't appear on the same charts which can make it really confusing to get around Tokyo if you don't know the different rail lines intimately. Maybe something like that could work if there could be some cooperation with charts and maps being able to change lines at stations.

The only thing I found confusing about the subway it Tokyo was:

IT'S GINORMOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!!

00001_zpsd5qr7pax.jpg

 

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