The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[smeagolsfree]

Drove thru Columbus during morning rush, a piece of cake compared to Nashville.

[markhollin]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

To bolster my point, even people in Columbus and Indy drink the light rail kook-aid ... while getting home from work in 22 minutes.

Wellllll...the average commute time in Nashville was 24.3 minutes...so what's your point? 

 

[Dale]

4 minutes ago, markhollin said:

Wellllll...the average commute time in Nashville was 24.3 minutes...so what's your point? 

 

Well then, the point becomes what are Nashvillians complaining about ? I think that’s better than urbanist’s wet dream Portland.

[markhollin]

^ ^ ^ It's going to take a comprehensive plan utilizing several different modes beyond just roadways to solve the long term issues.  

 

[Dale]

19 minutes ago, markhollin said:

^ ^ ^ It's going to take a comprehensive plan utilizing several different modes beyond just roadways to solve the long term issues.  

 

I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. 

[BnaBreaker]

Once again let me repeat that traffic reduction, particularly for suburban commuters, is not really the point of urban mass rail transit.  I also fail to understand how the mere existence of relatively successful cities that lack rail transit is being used as an argument against it.  

[Dale]

4 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

Once again let me repeat that traffic reduction, particularly for suburban commuters, is not really the point of urban mass rail transit.  I also fail to understand how the mere existence of relatively successful cities that lack rail transit is being used as an argument against it.  

It’s being adduced as proof that cities don’t need it to thrive and get people to work on time.

[PaulChinetti]

https://www.walkbikenashville.org/impossible_crossings

A lot of these are state controlled at what point does the city get to take over to protect it's citizens?

[PruneTracy]

1 minute ago, PaulChinetti said:

https://www.walkbikenashville.org/impossible_crossings

A lot of these are state controlled at what point does the city get to take over to protect it's citizens?

TDOT defers to municipalities for most operations on state routes, particularly areas at or near signalized intersections. Metro can more or less do what it wants, when it wants.

I think you'll find the logjam here isn't on the state's side.

[PaulChinetti]

Who’s the hold up? The council? Public Works? The ever deciding factor, money?

[PruneTracy]

19 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

Who’s the hold up? The council? Public Works? The ever deciding factor, money?

Metro moves at a snail's pace but as always the issue is money and resources. As I noted a little while back Metro doesn't even have a proper department of transportation, Public Works handles it in addition to many other tasks. Not saying they aren't capable of it, just that they get pulled in several directions at once.

At the end of the day, it's the same issue as transit, or really anything else. Is it realistic to expect Metro to be able to pour resources into this one facet of the city's infrastructure? Is the level of service that these groups advocate for realistic relative to other needs? Same with TDOT, except now we're talking about the entire state, not just Nashville. These agencies have a finite amount of money and resources.

Walk Bike Nashville, like the transit groups on both sides, is ultimately a lobbying group. It's easy to release this infographic and shame Metro/TDOT for not solving problems (assuming they could be solved), but there are a hundred other groups demanding the same thing for every conceivable issue the city/state could have.

[PaulChinetti]

I understand it's priorities but I guess it doesn't seem to hard to lay down some crosswalks in areas to at least give pedestrians the chance of someone driving to slow down. 

[Tennessine]

I didn't know that our city's transportation issues and funding are handled by Public Works. What is the reason for this? It can't be size; even Chattanooga, with less than 200k people, has its own DOT. Is it the area of the city? Davidson County is a lot of space for one city to cover, so maybe it's easier for TDOT to handle Nashville-Davidson. 

Do you think our pedestrian infrastructure would be better if Metro had its own DOT? I feel like we may still have the same problems, e.g. lack of funding and more important issues to fix. 

[PaulChinetti]

7 hours ago, PruneTracy said:

At the end of the day, it's the same issue as transit, or really anything else. Is it realistic to expect Metro to be able to pour resources into this one facet of the city's infrastructure? Is the level of service that these groups advocate for realistic relative to other needs? Same with TDOT, except now we're talking about the entire state, not just Nashville. These agencies have a finite amount of money and resources.

I do think problem areas that have been problem areas for awhile should be addressed. I’m sure they are on a spreadsheet backlog somewhere. But there should be a incredibly low tolerance for people getting killed before the city/state does something, ie the part of Nolensville by the Walmart. 

[LA_TN]

No comment

[PruneTracy]

6 hours ago, nativetenn said:

I didn't know that our city's transportation issues and funding are handled by Public Works. What is the reason for this? It can't be size; even Chattanooga, with less than 200k people, has its own DOT. Is it the area of the city? Davidson County is a lot of space for one city to cover, so maybe it's easier for TDOT to handle Nashville-Davidson. 

Do you think our pedestrian infrastructure would be better if Metro had its own DOT? I feel like we may still have the same problems, e.g. lack of funding and more important issues to fix. 

CDOT only recently came into being (themselves previously being under DPW), and they are having their own growing pains in working out how they are going to approach their transportation infrastructure.

The organization itself is not as important as having a clear direction. Metro could get by with either Public Works or a DOT, they just need money and a mission. The sidewalk fiascos are a good example. Megan Barry and the Council opted to throw money at sidewalk construction with muddled intent on what the goal was, other than just to get concrete in the ground. They complained about the site selection, then they complained because the projects were getting bogged down in stormwater and right-of-way, then they complained when the program tried to find areas where sidewalks could be installed quickly.

5 hours ago, PaulChinetti said:

I do think problem areas that have been problem areas for awhile should be addressed. I’m sure they are on a spreadsheet backlog somewhere. But there should be a incredibly low tolerance for people getting killed before the city/state does something, ie the part of Nolensville by the Walmart. 

The problem is that assumes that something can, in fact, be done about the fatalities. Many of these intersections identified as dangerous only have a handful of ped crashes. I'm not trying to trivialize either, but the 19 pedestrian fatalities shown in four years at 30 intersections in Nashville is about the number of traffic fatalities the state sees in a week. Crashes, and fatal crashes in particular, are rare events where random chance plays a large role and the type and number of them don't always point to an obvious safety problem.

This shows up a lot on TDOT road safety audits where a computer algorithm will identify an intersection or a stretch of roadway as having a statistically high number of crashes. Then you pull the reports and one crash was a drunk driver who wouldn't have seen any type of warning sign, another is someone on their cell phone who could have crossed the centerline at any point in a miles-long stretch depending on when the phone buzzed, one is a guy who's driven through the same intersection a million times and just tried to run the red light one too many times, etc. You go out on site and the signs and pavement markings are all in good shape, there's no sight distance problems, no obvious hazards, but since the crashes are high you end up calling for larger signs or flashing beacons or some other measures that may or may not correlate to the contributing factors of the crashes. Then since random chance plays such a large part the future crashes are just as likely to regress to the mean whether you changed anything on the roadway or not.

My point is that the ped crashes at these dangerous intersections may or may not point to an actual safety issue to be addressed. Measures like adding transverse crosswalks, countdown timers (or ped signals at all), etc. are good for the overall safety of an intersection but aren't going to do much to stop a drunk guy walking out into traffic or someone crossing against the signal. Not saying all of these crashes are attributable to that but having read one too many crash reports I'd wager quite a few involve jaywalking, nighttime, or both. And again, since crashes are relatively random and infrequent, a fatality occurring at intersection A one day could happen at intersection B the next.

This isn't to say that Metro is absolved of any obligation to improve ped infrastructure, and they (with funding from TDOT Local Programs) have been doing that in high-volume areas that have had high-profile fatalities, such as on Harding Place. Just an observation that the 30 intersections with the most ped crashes don't necessarily correlate to the 30 most dangerous intersections as Walk Bike Nashville says. Systematically Metro could probably do better by identifying exposure rate (number of peds x number of vehicles) and focusing on achieving a consistent standard of measures at all major intersections.

[PaulChinetti]

So the city needs a consistent plan, that they tackle on a non-glacial timeframe, that they actually complete. 

Doesn't bode well, ha.

[timmay143]

Not Nashville  but transportation related.  I thought it was a fun video with a cool perspective.  I've never been to NY or Chicago except the airports.

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by timmay143

[Dale]

Chicago appears to be killing NYC on transit. Yes, the article is written by the mayor of Chicago, but the NYC mayor agrees. Possible take-home for Nashville: focus on what you have and make it better ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/opinion/rahm-emanuel-chicago-l-mass-transit.html

[Tennessine]

Speaking of, didn't we buy Chicago's old cars for the Music City Star line?

[smeagolsfree]

They are considering a 40 billion upgrade to NYC subway system, but how to pay for a system thats falling apart.

[donNdonelson2]

3 hours ago, nativetenn said:

Speaking of, didn't we buy Chicago's old cars for the Music City Star line?

From Wikipedia 

[Tennessine]

4 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

They are considering a 40 billion upgrade to NYC subway system, but how to pay for a system thats falling apart.

Call me a snobby wuss if you will- I won't fight you- but New York's underground is frickin' disgusting. It was absolutely filthy everywhere I went.  You couldn't pay me to ride it in most parts of the City. Mostly out of fear for my safety. When I was there, I admit to sticking to Uber most of the time. I felt fifty times safer on street level. 

[Pdt2f]

7 minutes ago, nativetenn said:

Call me a snobby wuss if you will- I won't fight you- but New York's underground is frickin' disgusting. It was absolutely filthy everywhere I went.  You couldn't pay me to ride it in most parts of the City. Mostly out of fear for my safety. When I was there, I admit to sticking to Uber most of the time. I felt fifty times safer on street level. 

I mean, I wouldn’t eat off the floors but it’s not too terrible, in my experience. Or at least it’s better than what it was 20-30 years ago. There are occasional rats and lots of garbage, but it’s a primarily underground transit system in a city of 8 million plus so that’s to be expected. 

[Tennessine]

1 minute ago, Pdt2f said:

I mean, I wouldn’t eat off the floors but it’s not too terrible, in my experience. Or at least it’s better than what it was 20-30 years ago. There are occasional rats and lots of garbage, but it’s a primarily underground transit system in a city of 8 million plus so that’s to be expected. 

It's great for what it is and a necessity for the City, but if I'm being honest, I was thinking NYC could do better than what it currently has. I'm very glad to hear it has gotten better.