The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[bigeasy]

Would it even be fair to complain about transportation issues since the weather is so bad? I am sure public transit would not solve these issues, but it sure would be nice to have as an option instead of me taking the risk to go into work. Seems like lots of people turn to public transit with weather like this anyways. I knew lots of people that used the Music City Star this week, and never do outside of this. 

 

That being said, it took me 45 minutes to 1/2 mile yesterday on Franklin Road to OHB. I guess everyone including me were sticking to main roads. My normal 15 min commute took a tad over 90 minutes. 

[nashvillwill]

I think public transit can play a critical role in inclimate weather. Granted, buses face the same issues we all do, but judging by the buses going by my house this week, they didn't miss a beat.

The problem is the same as it always is. People don't consider it an option. Someone on my neighborhood group FB page was complaining yesterday saying they had been stranded for 4 days, blaming TDOT and said that the city should now have to pay his/her rent since they haven't been able to make it to work. First off, I've been driving around all week without a single slide. I mentioned to him/her that the MTA goes directly in front of his house every 15 minutes, to which he responded that the buses "have been shut down". I know for a fact that is not true.

But I digress, I will say that the MTA appears to have done a great job this week, despite the weather. Although, I admittedly didn't use it, so I may be way off base.

[rookzie]

I think public transit can play a critical role in inclimate weather. Granted, buses face the same issues we all do, but judging by the buses going by my house this week, they didn't miss a beat.

The problem is the same as it always is. People don't consider it an option. Someone on my neighborhood group FB page was complaining yesterday saying they had been stranded for 4 days, blaming TDOT and said that the city should now have to pay his/her rent since they haven't been able to make it to work. First off, I've been driving around all week without a single slide. I mentioned to him/her that the MTA goes directly in front of his house every 15 minutes, to which he responded that the buses "have been shut down". I know for a fact that is not true.

But I digress, I will say that the MTA appears to have done a great job this week, despite the weather. Although, I admittedly didn't use it, so I may be way off base.

 

Well, the MTA in your neck of the woods might appear to have done a good job (and you did qualify it by saying that you may be way off base), but for a number of other bus routes, not as heavily ridden as West End, Nolensville, Gallatin, Hillsboro, and Charlotte routes, I have substantial evidence ─ both from direct experience and word of mouth ─ that the MTA actually pulled some of its coaches off some routes to feed others, and there is direct evidence to suggest that some of the lesser routes were sacrificial to the "primary" routes.

It is very disgusting to arrive at your bus stop with time to "spare" before the next-bus scheduled arrival, only to discover that the "real" next bus is actually the bus that would be scheduled to arrive at the succeeding headway interval.  To make it worse, there are no shelters at most stops, to serve as wind-breakers or seating, and many of these lesser routes have long headways of up to 40 min. during rush, 60 minutes non-rush.  With nothing as yet in place as a smart-phone app to provide real-time arrivals (it was announced that MTA is working on a test batch), then you're stuck out there freezing your "thangs" off, because you end up having to wait in effect for 2 headway periods, and you can't tell during the wait whether the bus is just stuck in traffic or that it won't be coming at all because MTA has temporarily reduced the frequency of these "off" routes.  I think that I'm now just starting to pay the price with a head cold from prolonged exposure two evenings in a row.

 

Just how many times have you been downtown waiting at the terminal for seriously delayed (or a no-show) bus, only to observe 2, 3 or even 4 buses each of one or more single routes with short headways cruise around the bend.  I don't know whether of not you ever use the bus at all, but I can be assured that you'd be as pi$sed as most of us, if you watched in the cold (or sweltering heat) repeat buses passing by, except for yours (if it ever does).  Its like watching others always win a lottery, while you don't.  When this occurs consistently (and it does), it tends to make you feel "underserved" (again, it does), given the fact that you pay the same fare as anyone else, and even though students do not pay, you then tend to feel that you're being denied the same level of service as they (and you are).  Transit agencies in general do not operate at at a profit off fares, and therefore it can be understood why secondary (and lesser) routes would not receive scheduling frequency as the corridors, but that does not justify an agency's laxity in scheduling performance on these lesser routes.  But this shows glaringly, when the operations has focused selectively on supporting the corridors, for the sake of ridership.  While It could be only a coincidence that the closing of Metro schools (and therefore the need for consistent transfers of students) due to inclement weather, has run concurrent with the shortage of these secondary route buses, I only can imagine that he MTA would have handled this differently, had schools not been closed as long as they have, during this cold encounter.

During the last 2 days, it has taken me between an hour and a half to 2 hours, 15 minutes to travel a distance that normally would take 25-30 minutes.  I expect delays, since the MTA is subject to the same unpredictable conditions of congestion as any other traffic-bound motor vehicle.  And then some transit drivers don't report to work for their own personal reasons, and the extra-board never gets filled because they run out of drivers.  Finally, drivers who are on the extra-board or who have been reassigned temporarily for cold-weather dispatch, frequently are given lousy instructions (or their faculty and perception limits their comprehension), and these drivers, being somewhat unfamiliar, are often seen not following the designated route, and if such a driver's bus does happen to show up for a waiting (stranded) rider, the driver has had to rely on the boarding passenger to direct or assist her/him in following the route.  Snow-route detours exacerbate the problem even worse, since not all drivers system-wide or even those assigned to a specific route seem to agree on instructions to follow these detours, and therefore if you board a bus at an announced and expected detour path, the bus driver of the next arriving bus for that particular route might make you end up missing the bus, because she/he has "understood" an order to return to the standard route.  Meanwhile, you're standing there waiting for a bus that never will have arrived, and your best chance if even catching one would be only if the driver of the following bus would have adhered to the detour as published.

The converse of this also occurs, of course, until the weather clears up. But this is a huge SNAFU of the MTA, whether you are aware of it or not.  This “behind-the-scene” disruptions logistic is just totally unacceptable, period, contrary to what you might have observed and possibly ridden.  We all know about MTA’s cash-strapped funding issues, and it needs a whole lot more coaches to sustain the level of service that it might normally appear to provide.  IMHO, one of the best capital expenditures that a non-rapid system could do with some of that remaining funding from the EW-BRT Connector, would be to buy some new coaches, as much of MTA’s 40-foot fleet is aging (given a probable useful life span of 12 years).  Between one-third and one-half of the fleet is subject to incur imminent failure with leaking and heavily worn transaxle final-drives and with heavily worn piston rings, cylinder bores, and injectors (no doubt, to an extent the result of deferred mtce.).  And while commuters should be wanting to embrace public transit during these periods system-wide, not just along the main corridors, the physical plant of the transit agency apparently has little if any reserve to protect a normal level of service, and if it did, then it probably would not be deploying the Green buses (Free Ride circulators) on other routes during morning (and sometimes afternoon) rush.

 

The ability to sustain even marginal reliability and resilience during the snowy, icy periods, for a complete network of service, once buses again are capable of returning to their routes ─ detour or not ─ is a barometer of the underlying stability of the operation as a whole.  I really needed to air this rant.

-==-

 

Edited February 20, 2015 by rookzie

[Nathan_in_DC]

It all seems like there is one, easy, and short answer to your complaints, rookzie: smartphone tracking of buses.

 

I avoid at all costs any route that has more than 15 minute headways because of the unpredictability of traffic/ineptitude of drivers/poor planning of routes precludes reliable service, which means that if you don't want to wait for an hour, you have to ensure you're at the stop before the bus arrives. And the only way to do that is having some means of telling where the buses are located.

[rookzie]

It all seems like there is one, easy, and short answer to your complaints, rookzie: smartphone tracking of buses.

 

I avoid at all costs any route that has more than 15 minute headways because of the unpredictability of traffic/ineptitude of drivers/poor planning of routes precludes reliable service, which means that if you don't want to wait for an hour, you have to ensure you're at the stop before the bus arrives. And the only way to do that is having some means of telling where the buses are located.

 

Well and good.  The problem is, Nathan_in_DC, that Nashv'l MTA, as you already are aware, is strictly a radial system, with parallel routes being confined to the orig. grid system, if even to that extent.  You generally only can ride parallel as alternate if your destination from DT is not farther SW than Vandy, Elliston Pl. Midtown, or if you travel strictly along a corridor of overlapping routes: E, SE, S-SE, N-NE, W-SW, and that's only if you don't live "far" out, where the overlappers branch off.  True, these have moderatety short headways, when you include the redundancy of overlapping runs.

 

Most of us who do live within 8 miles of the center of DT don't live close to those corridors, which of course run beyond much of the lop-sided grid system, so unless you live close to, say, the pikes of  Nolensville, Harding (but no farther than White Bridge), Gallatin,  Murf'boro, Lebanon, or Hillsboro, then you're not going to find a short-headway bus (less than 20 min.).  Most of us who live within this 8-mile radius live somewhere in the middle between these "spokes", and the farther you live away from the center, then you generally are going to depend on a route takes you off the beaten path ─ that being usually at least a mile from an arterial.  All non-corridor routes have headways longer than 15 minutes, I might add.

 

As I also mentioned above, the MTA is said to be initiating a test batch of real-time arrival, and it should be only a matter of time that a smart-phone tracking app is released (although it's probably still too long for one to hold his breath over).  Again this is the kind of time that the public would tend to embrace transit, even for town the size of Nashville, so unless one has a blank check for daily R-T on Lyft, Uber, or a taxi, still subject to the extreme road conditions on side roads, then he probably would prefer to use transit, if he worked DT and didn't have an employee parking perk (closely accessible in this type of weather).

 

The Nashv'l MTA reliability seems to be worse during the afternoon and evening, at least as observed on a handful of routes within 8 miles of DT, and that is the time that riders seem to need it the most.  Of the cites in which you do ride transit (DC, Balto, Philly,...), if one of those happens to be Nashville, then I take it that you either choose not to ride it regularly and/or you are fortunate than most by being able to ride a corridor route with no transfer; and/or (I almost forgot) your commute distance is within a few miles and that happens to offer a choice of routes.  Some of us, like me, simply are not physically able to drive, during nightfall or pre-dawn, as the workplace demands.

-==-

Edited February 22, 2015 by rookzie

[Nathan_in_DC]

Agreed with everything, rookzie.

 

It's nigh-on criminal that Nashville has such a poorly connected, routed, and planned (or rather, unplanned), bus system that leaves so much of the city high and dry, even when it is working on schedule.

[rookzie]

Agreed with everything, rookzie.

 

It's nigh-on criminal that Nashville has such a poorly connected, routed, and planned (or rather, unplanned), bus system that leaves so much of the city high and dry, even when it is working on schedule.

 

That pretty much sums it up in a nugget – better that I could have done.  While I apologize if I might always appear on a diatribe with the Nashv'l MTA (you'd think it and I were spouses of domestic violence, the way I b!tch @ it), I only want to bring to light the rap in truth about it.  Admittedly, this most recent denunciation was sparked off by a qualified observation expressed in earnest from nashvillewill, from his vantage point.  I certainly owe him an amends as well, if he thought I might be barking at him, since I casually used second-person to refer to and to address, rather than use third to generalize and to direct it to the forum.

My intent only is to share and keep listeners aware of the disparity in the evolution and maturity of the city w/r/t urban development, and all these discussions as a whole reveal that the city is burgeoning and ripening with activity, coming back with a vengeance since 2008.  As one can look 360 from many vantage points and see that development rapidly is approaching a crescendo, it’s been a big temptation for me to vilify the MTA, since Barney Rubble and his neighbor Fred seem to have gotten around better than present-day ‘villians.

 

I just hope that I can "hurt so good", to give the MTA and RTA credit and kudos, as it is due, as it is for help from county commissions and the state's utilizing the fed Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds for the regional movements.  Since 2009 MTA has improved notably with coverage and frequency for some corridors, but it has done this in some cases at the expense of secondary runs, as it has actually degraded service along some shorter urban routes (like increasing headways from 30- to 40 min., or for at least one line serving primarily transit-dependent riders, 60 minutes during rush, and reducing some routes to a service period of only 3 hours in the AM and again in the PM).  Again, this "robbin' Peter to pay Paul" symptom stems in part from the cash-strapped funding priority for the agency, so looking vicariously from inside, it's likely doing the best that it can.

-==-

 

[Will]

Golf carts emerge as a transportation option downtown. Interesting that this company runs on a tip-only business model.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2015/02/who-needs-the-amp-when-we-have-golf-carts-micro.html

[Vrtigo]

Golf carts emerge as a transportation option downtown. Interesting that this company runs on a tip-only business model.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2015/02/who-needs-the-amp-when-we-have-golf-carts-micro.html

 

I hope their East Nashville aspirations come true! I would love to have a quick shuttle between 5&M and Five Points for those nights when my friends keep me at 3 Crow Bar a little bit too long...

[rookzie]

Just be careful what you wish for:

 

]

 

If it ever does really catch on, then it may escalate to something more stable, but eventually more structured guidelines will have to come to play.

 

-==-

[Vrtigo]

I should have qualified my comments:

 

In lieu of an AMP-like, more permanent, much more effective option...

 

I mean, really. It would be irony at its finest (and I'd be smugly satisfied, for a brief moment) if the best thing Nashville could ever get passed into fruition would be fleets of golf carts swarming the city. We'd certainly cement our place as the redneck capital of the world...

 

I'm going to go weep for our city now. I'll be back later.

[PruneTracy]

We'd certainly cement our place as the redneck capital of the world...

 

Golf carts are for hoity-toity Floridian retirees. No self-respecting cosmopolitan redneck urbanite would be caught dead in a Club Car. No, he would ride in style.

 

[BnaBreaker]

Are there no rickshaws in downtown Nashville?

[MLBrumby]

Opinion Alert!!  No apologies if you are offended.  The more this debate about transit rages in Nashville, the more I realize just how naïve Nashville really is about the whole subject of mass transit.  First, it ain't rocket science... Second, it's very expensive (so a cost/benefit needs to be made and not just for political purposes... but to pay the bonds required)... Third, cost and planning require a phased in approach for a long term implementation... Fourth, you need the most powerful constituents in town behind it (business in west, political in east and north, and moving tourists around).  If you have any of those groups against it, it will fail.  AMP failed because the west and parts of the other sections were not behind it.  The route down the corridor that serves a huge segment of the west was to be adversely affected. AMP, while appealing on many levels, could not get past the perception that it was a half-assed solution to a problem that it might even make worse (traffic down West End).

[Jamie Hall]

Are there no rickshaws in downtown Nashville?

If there aren't, there should be. And pulled by the homeless, of course.

[Nathan_in_DC]

The route down the corridor that serves a huge segment of the west was to be adversely affected. AMP, while appealing on many levels, could not get past the perception that it was a half-assed solution to a problem that it might even make worse (traffic down West End).

 

I think it was more that it was a fact that it really was a half-assed solution, not simply a misconceived perception. I was admittedly a huge supporter of it, but I'd be lying to myself if I denied that it was just a half-way-there idea.

 

I have stated before, there has been a massive failure on the part of the city, state, and surrounding governments to do anything about getting a real solution for wider integrated transportation in the city. One that includes new and better highways and surface streets, regional rail and bus lines, and short-headway scheduled surface transit (be it light rail, BRT, or a freaking ion engine powered maglev monorail vaccuum tube people mover).

 

Until Davidson County and the metro area's leadership gets their heads out of their collective rears and actually gets an integrated plan working, we'll only see piecemeal improvements or stopgap fixes that could very well hurt the situation in the future.  See the above conversation about the poor planning of 21st near the 440 interchange: they didn't even plan far enough ahead to allow for ANY increased capacity.  It was built to barely be able to handle the traffic it saw in the 80s when it was constructed, and not even done well at that because of the placement of utility poles and narrow sidewalks.  It's just a symptom of a terrible disease that has plagued the city for decades.

 

Until you get better planning, with realistic goals, tangible short term benefits, and well laid out long-term integration plans that have deadlines, dates, materials and land acquisition, and sources of funding that won't immediately make people wonder why they're being forced to pay for something they likely will never set foot on, we'll not see significant improvements to this city's transportation infrastructure.  You have to show people that what they're going to put money in to is something that will directly benefit them.  A new ring road that makes it easier to get around the city or a repaved highway that they drive on every day are easy to justify. But an integrated transportation plan is a little more difficult and requires more finesse than the city and state's leadership is apparently able to provide at this juncture.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Nathan_in_DC

[japan]

I should have qualified my comments:

 

In lieu of an AMP-like, more permanent, much more effective option...

 

I mean, really. It would be irony at its finest (and I'd be smugly satisfied, for a brief moment) if the best thing Nashville could ever get passed into fruition would be fleets of golf carts swarming the city. We'd certainly cement our place as the redneck capital of the world...

 

I'm going to go weep for our city now. I'll be back later.

I agree.  I hate seeing these golf carts flying all over downtown.  

[37206dude]

Are there no rickshaws in downtown Nashville?

 

Im not sure if you are joking with this post but yes there are pedal cabs downtown.

http://www.nashvillepedicab.com/

 

this picture is not from nashville but they look like this

Edited February 26, 2015 by 37206dude

[BnaBreaker]

Im not sure if you are joking with this post but yes there are pedal cabs downtown.

http://www.nashvillepedicab.com/

 

this picture is not from nashville but they look like this

 

Thanks for the info, and, I wasn't joking, I think they're a viable and convenient transportation option for short distances.  I was just curious because they're so prevalent in other major cities.

[rookzie]

I think it was more that it was a fact that it really was a half-assed solution, not simply a misconceived perception. I was admittedly a huge supporter of it, but I'd be lying to myself if I denied that it was just a half-way-there idea.

 

I have stated before, there has been a massive failure on the part of the city, state, and surrounding governments to do anything about getting a real solution for wider integrated transportation in the city. One that includes new and better highways and surface streets, regional rail and bus lines, and short-headway scheduled surface transit (be it light rail, BRT, or a freaking ion engine powered maglev monorail vaccuum tube people mover).

 

Until Davidson County and the metro area's leadership gets their heads out of their collective rears and actually gets an integrated plan working, we'll only see piecemeal improvements or stopgap fixes that could very well hurt the situation in the future.  See the above conversation about the poor planning of 21st near the 440 interchange: they didn't even plan far enough ahead to allow for ANY increased capacity.  It was built to barely be able to handle the traffic it saw in the 80s when it was constructed, and not even done well at that because of the placement of utility poles and narrow sidewalks.  It's just a symptom of a terrible disease that has plagued the city for decades.

 

Until you get better planning, with realistic goals, tangible short term benefits, and well laid out long-term integration plans that have deadlines, dates, materials and land acquisition, and sources of funding that won't immediately make people wonder why they're being forced to pay for something they likely will never set foot on, we'll not see significant improvements to this city's transportation infrastructure.  You have to show people that what they're going to put money in to is something that will directly benefit them.  A new ring road that makes it easier to get around the city or a repaved highway that they drive on every day are easy to justify. But an integrated transportation plan is a little more difficult and requires more finesse than the city and state's leadership is apparently able to provide at this juncture.

 

Gospel!! On 21st Ave S., the existing Harris-Teeter (or whatever it will be transformed into), the historic fire station, and the Kinnard Bldg. being built up to the road probably contributed to the ill-conceived proposal for that revival of consideration for an additional interchange at Granny While Pk., which of course got batted down and removed from the G-H Transportation Plan, as the neighborhoods affected during I-440 construction in that area have slowly risen from the ashes, particularly along Battlefield Dr. and Gale Ln.

Whatever they DO do, it shouldn't be any project which removes more landscape related to interchanging with 440 Pkwy, whatever the costs.  440 was conceived because of the on-the-cheap costs tied with acquisition of the the old Tennessee Central Railroad beltline, and with as with any such project nationwide, interchanging with any arterial is bound to compound surface congestion along those roadways as feeders.  Unfortunately, and as you also have just stated, the Hillsboro - 21st Ave.  interchange never had been transitioned with the surface conditions south and north, particularly which had been congested themselves at least since the '60s, with traffic local and Williamson Co. traffic. Hell, I recall being stuck in traffic regularly during the late '60s early '70s, when you had to drive through this narrow-ass railroad underpass (the TC) where 440 now is located, and you had to squeeze down from 2 into a single lane each direction, because the underpass bridge spanning Hillsboro had been built with a center concrete pier between the supported ends, long before any need of increased capacity had been conceived (the 1920's). Now that the railroad is long gone, IMHO this falls a lot (if not mostly) on the city, despite the fact that Hillsboro-21st is a federal highway.  The very same can also be applied to most every other "molasses" interchange ramp on or off 440.

 

On a lesser note, here's yet another example of lack of integrated planning ─ the Division Street-to-Ash Street extension. which is about to undergo the same level of under-planning.  As I stated somewhere else, if and when a true "interlocking" traffic movement plan can be arranged with proactive foresight on what remains of those roadway fragments, IMO, Lafayette to Division should be enough for the time being, for Melrose and Music Row drivers to avoid having to cut along 4th or 2nd and weave over to Oak, Bass and Ft. Negley Blvd. to Chestnut, in order to avoid Lafayette to the roundabout.  But it really could have been engineered to dovetail into Lindsley pass the Fulton Complex to tie into Hermitage Ave., even though there is not much latitude for widening Lindsley between the historic bldgs. of what now is the Metro Office Bldg. (former Galloway Hospital) and the Lindsley Ave. Church of Christ.  Integrated planning really shouldn't even stop there as a turn-key, stand-alone, because whatever gets planned and sanctioned and implemented, along with what does not, will become a basis of evolution for a next generation or two of what can be expected to a "resolidification" of urbanism.

 

The very few direct paths within this town remain clogged, not only with those who have determined that these severely over-capacity commute paths are the least paths of resistance (lesser of evils), but also these very few direct paths have to convey those who have no reasonable drivable alternative, because of the absence of roadway continuity.  Of course, it's nonsensical to "buy" a fully revised physical plant for a city, but the very inaction and apathy to which Nathan_in_DC alludes as rampant and perverse, is the very thing that, during the past half century of administrations, has led to the wholesale loss of elements and opportunities to address expectations before they become compounded and confounded (a pet word) in the deference to private development.

-==-

Edited February 28, 2015 by rookzie

[Vrtigo]

Interesting read on the history of the various Nashville streetcar lines from years past:

http://nashvillehistory.blogspot.com/2015/03/street-railways-in-nashville.html

Of particular interest, all of the lines that were once in service appear to have been privately operated, rather than being run by the city.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Heartbreaking that virtually every building in this photo has been demolished. This is a view of the old courthouse square and the trolley barn is the large building on the left.

[CenterHill]

I love seeing the density that used to exist downtown.      This was in the day before the parking-lot-as-a-business-model.   

[rookzie]

Interesting read on the history of the various Nashville streetcar lines from years past:

http://nashvillehistory.blogspot.com/2015/03/street-railways-in-nashville.html

Of particular interest, all of the lines that were once in service appear to have been privately operated, rather than being run by the city.

 

Streetcar lines generally were privately owned nationwide.  NYC's subway system and bus system had consisted of a few remaining private lines into the 1950s, and historically the more physically mature (downhill) natives still refer to subway lines as the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit), the BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit), and the IND(ependent) Subway Sys.  With the exception of the IND, these separate systems were acquired by the city in 1940, whereas the IND was conceived and built as municipal from the start (the 1930s).   In time the management and authority of governance has even though they long since have been managed by the city since 1940, eventually turned over to a public benefit corp NYC "TA" in the '50s and eventually  the State of NY chartered NY "MTA".  This latter point is the reason that the NYMTA gets so "spoiled" with extremely heavy funding, with the Second Ave Subway becoming the most recent project (Phase 1 - underground boring operations).

 

One reason that development occurred along private streetcar lines was that these private lines typically sold real estate, as prior to the wide ownership of the private automobile, residential and business construction would tend to flourish on the land along these lines, and people along these lines would be "encouraged" to use these for travel to and from their homes to the core.  Before Nashv'l's MTA in 1973 was the private NTC (Nashv'l Transit Co.), and concurrent with the NTC (which took me around town before a got my first car), I still recall seeing daily from my high-school windows the "Interburban Lines" (bus) to Franklin as late as 1969.  This had been the last remnant of what once had been the Nashville-Franklin Interurban Railway (and probably the final vestige of private transit ownership in Nashville).  By this time, the remaining buses were so worn out that I had been embarrassed for schoolmates who had been "fortunate" to ride those things.  The blue-black bus smoke let you know that one had just passed sometime during the previous minute, and they were stick-shift (similar to the one in the photo).

 

Flxible Intercity Bus (similar to one on Nashville-Franlin Interurban Lines - 1947-1972)

-==-

Edited March 2, 2015 by rookzie

[Vrtigo]

I don't want to derail this discussion too far into the political realm (as we all know how that ends up), but mayoral candidate David Fox has made well-known his stance that our mass transit initiatives should again be privatized [Nashville Scene]:

 

The notion of public-private partnerships shows up elsewhere in Fox's vision. In transit, for instance, he says Nashville (and surrounding areas) should pursue a European model: a private company builds a regional transit system, and municipalities lease it, charging a user fee that — if the math is done right — can cover the city's cost.

 

"We don't do any of that here," he says, sitting near a 19th century Nashville transit map that he says shows how little the city has progressed in some areas. "We should be doing it here. Because how are we gonna pay for this stuff? Nobody is going to pay the taxes it would require to fund all this stuff, but we need it."

 

On the surface, such a thing sounds great considering how poorly the city has managed our current system. However, I'm simply not sure how feasible or likely it would be around here since our local population already makes any transit initiative an uphill battle. I wonder if any private companies would even think attempting to build a private system is worth the trouble...

 

Still, intriguing nonetheless. 

Edited March 2, 2015 by Vrtigo