The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[BnaBreaker]

Monorails are for Disneyworld.   

[Tennessine]

5 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Monorails are for Disneyworld.   

You have a point. You only find them at airports and theme parks. But, they are pretty cool...

[smeagolsfree]

And Las Vegas.

[Tennessine]

Just now, smeagolsfree said:

And Las Vegas.

Basically a theme park hahaha

[PruneTracy]

Don't forget about Ogdenville, Brockway, and North Haverbrook!

[volsfanwill]

23 hours ago, Buildtall said:

I would like Nashville to have the trains, monorails, light rail, etc running out to the surrounding county’s..  But I personally would like to see 840 run from Lebanon  to I65 north as it would be helpful  to me personally but I just can’t give her my vote. I’ve always thought monorails would be the best option since they are up in the air and not affected by traffic. Light rail is ok too but I prefer monorails.  Just my 2 cents. 

do you just mean elevated trains?   Monorail is a very specific type of elevated train, a regular rapid transit train an be put on elevated rails and still not be a monorail. but be much more efficient. 

[Buildtall]

2 minutes ago, volsfanwill said:

do you just mean elevated trains?   Monorail is a very specific type of elevated train, a regular rapid transit train an be put on elevated rails and still not be a monorail. but be much more efficient. 

Either would be fine but I’d take the Disney monorails any day. They move a lot of people every day  of the year  and I never get tired of riding them when I’m there and yes they are cooler.

Las Vegas is ok but it’s just connects all the hotels and probably not any fast than driving but sure is better than walking.

Don’t forget Seattle also has a short one too. 

[Hushpuppy321]

So what's the next step for possible rail based Transit in Nashville?  Any appetite for a scaled down version?

[LA_TN]

21 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Monorails are for Disneyworld.   

 

15 hours ago, nativetenn said:

You have a point. You only find them at airports and theme parks. But, they are pretty cool...

 

15 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

And Las Vegas.

Here's a real functional high ridership monorail in the heart of a major world city. Sorry I only have night pics

[Neigeville2]

I think we've established that for purposes of this discussion, there is no distinction between monorails and elevated trains.  Still for connections to Mboro etc, a train can go on the ground in the interstate ROW and start flying over obstacles when it gets to town.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Neigeville2

[Rockatansky]

On 6/9/2018 at 10:36 PM, Buildtall said:

I personally would like to see 840 run from Lebanon  to I65 north

As I understand it, TDOT has invested significantly in SR109 in recent years to allow it to function similarly to what 840N would have.

[titanhog]

1 hour ago, Rockatansky said:

As I understand it, TDOT has invested significantly in SR109 in recent years to allow it to function similarly to what 840N would have.

It has a long ways to go to be a good route from I-40 to I-65N.  Too bad they couldn't have at least kept that portion of I-840 intact because it's really needed.  I think the NW portion of I-840 is the piece that not only would have been really, really expensive to build (Cheatham County has way too many hills)...but also is least needed.  Briley is a decent option on that side of town to get from I-24/65 over to I-40W.

[Jamie Hall]

Diane Black is dreaming if she thinks an I-840 northern loop will make even a minor dent in Nashville traffic. As proof, I offer the I-840 southern loop.

[grilled_cheese]

10 hours ago, Jamie Hall said:

Diane Black is dreaming if she thinks an I-840 northern loop will make even a minor dent in Nashville traffic. As proof, I offer the I-840 southern loop.

She's high AF.

[AronG]

Diane Black and that whole ilk want to design our entire landscape around the part of people's day that they hate the most: their commute. Their plans would enable more people to sit in bigger traffic jams for longer than ever before. They give zero weight to considerations like quality of life, neighborhood connectivity, or livable communities. They'll accept any price to make the ring of suburbs one step larger, optimizing everything around getting a few more warm bodies from their subdivision garage to their corporate parking garage and back again with as little interruption as possible. They will happily keep adding lanes (and levels) to every interstate and road in middle Tennessee until every neighborhood is a tiny island surrounded and isolated by whizzing traffic. The only question is how long we're going to continue blundering forward with brain-dead Atlanta-style development before we look up for a minute and pay attention to the fact that it's a dead end.

[FrankNash]

^^^Vote! 

[Vrtigo]

I sometimes wonder when we will see a politician run on a "telecommute / work from home" platform. Wouldn't that be the ultimate solution to our traffic woes? I imagine some pretty creative ideas would come about if we threw the same billions of dollars toward incentivizing businesses in that direction as we seem all too willing to spend on slabs of asphalt.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Vrtigo

[nashvylle]

1 hour ago, Vrtigo said:

I sometimes wonder when we will see a politician run on a "telecommute / work from home" platform. Wouldn't that be the ultimate solution to our traffic woes? I imagine some pretty creative ideas would come about if we threw the same billions of dollars toward incentivizing businesses in that direction as we seem all to willing to spend on slabs of asphalt.

it's happening already on its own without government incentives.. and more and more people run their own businesses from home.

 

[SumnerCountian]

I would happily take a train, any train, on the ground, elevated, underground, I don't care. As long as it got me from Gallatin to downtown and out to the new Soccer stadium I would be happy not to have to drive my vehicle in to town. Will it happen in my lifetime, sadly I don't think so.

[SoundScan]

8 hours ago, Vrtigo said:

I sometimes wonder when we will see a politician run on a "telecommute / work from home" platform. Wouldn't that be the ultimate solution to our traffic woes? I imagine some pretty creative ideas would come about if we threw the same billions of dollars toward incentivizing businesses in that direction as we seem all to willing to spend on slabs of asphalt.

Would love to see such a shift, but commercial real estate managers/developers aren't going to like this idea. Lots of folks making money on the status quo, which is what makes it so hard to change.

[AronG]

I've heard plenty of politicians mention telecommuting when transit comes up. It's a go to answer for several of them, but that's because it costs them nothing and provides a great talking point to avoid talking about real solutions. It's never going to be viable for more than a small slice of the job market, most of which require presence to interact with a physical product, collaborate with team members, provide face-to-face service/sales, etc. And as the city grows we have plenty of traffic outside commuting hours anyway (e.g. Green Hills during the weekend). Are we going to advocate telecommuting to your family barbecue too?

To me it's a depressing idea anyway. Are we so defeated by the mess we've made of urban transportation that we're going to give up and advocate confining people to their homes? Everyone in their little box, interacting only through glowing screens? Cities are great because of the interactions between the people in them. We can enable and enrich those interactions, we just have admit that everyone getting around solo in a car isn't the answer. It's tough but not impossible to make that transition. Seattle is doing it.

[Lexy]

So, now that we have zero options for transit on the table my attention turns to the horribly antiquated interstates in and around Nashville and the lousy interchanges.  What can we do to push our state leaders to fix this mess?  The majority of our traffic issues revolve around interchanges that are currently at or above capacity.  The whole 24/40 spilt is a giant cluster.  TDOT seems perfectly happy with keeping it status quo.  We've heard NOTHING from them on fixing anything.  Just patch paving and pothole work.

 

As for future transit, I'm not a firm believer anything will ever happen.  We will continue to rely on cars in this metro.  This speak of monorail and stuff is fun, but unrealistic.  Monorail is EXPENSIVE and well, voters in Nashville have shown they don't want to spend a lot of money on transit and neighboring counties (and CSX) have shown no desire to change either.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Lexy

[Jamie Hall]

3 hours ago, Lexy said:

So, now that we have zero options for transit on the table my attention turns to the horribly antiquated interstates in and around Nashville and the lousy interchanges.  What can we do to push our state leaders to fix this mess?  

On a related note, is there some sort of nationwide paint shortage? TDOT is woefully behind on striping and arrow repainting on several of the interstates and interchanges around Nashville. TDOT staff should spend a day or two driving the roads with the mindset of a tourist rather than a full-time resident.

Edited June 14, 2018 by Jamie Hall

[PaulChinetti]

"The flow of bicycle traffic improved greatly after Nørrebrogade installed the ‘green wave’, which changed traffic lights to favour cyclists. Above is before; below is after"

That quote is from the last chart on the page. I can't even imagine the uproar here if the city did that.

"I'm supposed to wait for people on bicycles?! I'm in a car, I will just run them over because they are in MY way!"

Copenhagen is a very different city obviously but more ways to move people around besides cars should be our goal.

"20th Century: How many CARS can we move down the street?"
"21st Century: How many PEOPLE can we move down the street?"

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2018/jun/11/copenhagenize-case-urban-cycling-graphs

[AronG]

2 hours ago, PaulChinetti said:

"The flow of bicycle traffic improved greatly after Nørrebrogade installed the ‘green wave’, which changed traffic lights to favour cyclists. Above is before; below is after"

That quote is from the last chart on the page. I can't even imagine the uproar here if the city did that.

"I'm supposed to wait for people on bicycles?! I'm in a car, I will just run them over because they are in MY way!"

Copenhagen is a very different city obviously but more ways to move people around besides cars should be our goal.

"20th Century: How many CARS can we move down the street?"
"21st Century: How many PEOPLE can we move down the street?"

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2018/jun/11/copenhagenize-case-urban-cycling-graphs

Yeah, sometimes I like to imagine that we can all still debate ideas and somehow work together to choose a reasonable course, at least at the local level. Then I accidentally spend too much time in, say, a facebook thread about bird scooters. Comments inevitably devolve from menacing references to straight up jokes about killing. Good times. Nothing quite as hilarious as adding some more fellow human beings to the list of 6,000 pedestrians killed every year. Hardy har. Better make it 6,002 for these idiots.

It's amazing what getting into a car does to the human psyche. I feel it too. Surround yourself with thousands of pounds of metal that goes 80 mph with a press of your foot and you feel like the world should revolve around you. Puny humans walking or biking are nothing but an impediment, threatening to inconvenience you to the horrible tune of slowing down. Every kink in the road should be straightened, every bottleneck removed.