The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[Mr_Bond]

4 hours ago, titanhog said:

And...we have the pesky power lines to deal with.  It definitely won't be something that will happen with our current technology.

Thing is...both the autonomous vehicles and drone technology will hopefully lead us to something in the near future (within 20-30 years) that is a better fit for society than either of these.  Not sure what it would be, but the desire is there for us to develop something that will alleviate traffic issues while also making it safer to travel...while not polluting the environment and not being beholden to foreign governments who are hostile to our way of life.

In a dense, urban-ish area, we could set up platforms on the tops of buildings or on top of current transportation stations where passengers can hop aboard a drone.  These locations would be above the trees and power lines, close to current transportation hubs, and the air movements would not bother people who are not riding drones.  I agree that this could be very doable.  Maybe the Amazon Center Of Excellence in Nashville will be the first to propose this new method of transportation!

[PaulChinetti]

https://kottke.org/19/01/creating-livable-city-streets

Interesting little read. Definitely talks more about denser areas. But could easily describe suburbs built with no sidewalks or ways for the residents to interact. 

[MidTenn1]

The soon to start, $37,000,000  'Smart Corridor' project which will allow better operation of I-24 from Nashville to Murfreesboro by using Highway 41 as a parallel option to relieve some of the overflow through advanced Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology to balance traffic between the two routes. Some information....

The official video    

This concept is based on Integrated Corridor Management projects implemented in five cities (Minneapolis, Dallas, etc.) by the Federal Highway Administration a decade or so ago.  It is a less expensive option than adding lanes. And yes, if  rapid commuter transit ever develops, it would easily be incorporated into the management scheme of this corridor.

I hope the next project will be developed in Chattanooga to relieve congestion on I-24 which is persistent and ponderous by using Rossville Blvd/Georgia State Route 2 as a corridor alternative.

[grilled_cheese]

ramp metering, hell yeah!

[PruneTracy]

I was wasting time on Streetmix when I was supposed to be creating typical sections for a proposal and made up a section for lower Broadway. I think this is a good compromise between sidewalk width and vehicle laneage. Some notes:

• I know the honky-tonk owners don't want trees. But I've been drinking on Broadway in the middle of summer on more than one occasion. You need trees.
• Additionally, the furnishing zone can be used for lighting, benches, trash cans, etc. It also provides a place for ride hailing and yes, scooter storage.
• The center median can include left-turn lanes. I don't think the trees would be that big of a deal in obstructing views of temporary stages and/or fireworks. But they could always be shrubs or other greenery.
• The outside lane can accommodate a travel lane during the AM and PM rush hour, loading/unloading zones in the midday, and ridesharing/taxi pickup and dropoff in the evening. It is wide enough to allow bikes and cars to coexist (though not sure how many people want to bike on lower Broadway). It might be possible for a car to squeeze by a parked vehicle if needed but TDOT traffic counts suggest that the road could get by with only one lane in each direction outside peak periods.

[grilled_cheese]

Where's the five feet for jesus?

[PaulChinetti]

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/15/18183786/electric-scooter-portland-data-analysis

Interesting data from Portland on their scooter usage. I wonder if Nashville will do anything with all the data they are supposed to be getting.

[Mr_Bond]

49 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/15/18183786/electric-scooter-portland-data-analysis

Interesting data from Portland on their scooter usage. I wonder if Nashville will do anything with all the data they are supposed to be getting.

“That is not letting the market determine how many scooters should be anywhere,” Gabriel Scheer, Lime’s director of strategic development, told The New York Times. “How do you unfetter us in a way that allows us to meet demand?”

 

If we want to solve transportation problems in Nashville and middle Tennessee, we must let the market bring us solutions and let the users (us) decide on the viability of those solutions.  We must elect council members who believe the market can solve problems and will let the market function, not those who think corporations are evil.  Government hasn't fixed our transportation problems yet and they cannot fix them.  Only new ideas from the marketplace, motivated by profits, will find the 'adjacent possible' and bring us a safer, more efficient, less costly transportation system in middle Tennessee.

Again, our role as Davidson county citizens is to elect council members who are likely to support the free market's ability to create and innovate, not those who want to fight and regulate.

[grilled_cheese]

There is no free market.

[samsonh]

32 minutes ago, grilled_cheese said:

There is no free market.

This is reality. Libertarians have a view of the that is untethered from reality. The free market failures of the past 20 years have taught them no lessons. 

[Guest]

There is no ‘pure’ anything except in theory.

i will put the 'reality' version of a free-market up against the 'reality' version of socialism and communism and win every time.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Guest

[Dale]

1 hour ago, samsonh said:

This is reality. Libertarians have a view of the that is untethered from reality. The free market failures of the past 20 years have taught them no lessons. 

Caught! If there is no free market, then there are no free market failures.

[samsonh]

1 hour ago, nashville_bound said:

There is no ‘pure’ anything except in theory.

i will put the 'reality' version of a free-market up against the 'reality' version of socialism and communism and win every time.

The framing of this debate is always interesting. Anyone that doesn’t believe unfettered capitalism is best is a socialist or communist. Lol

[markhollin]

Off to the Coffeehouse with all this political/economical ideology, please.  Thanks.

[Guest]

Agreed. The framing of the debate IS always interesting. 

Since we all agree that a truly unfettered free-market is not a reality why do you insist on referring to one?  I referred to socialism and communism as the opposite extremes of the referenced free-market, I dd not imply you were a fan-boi of such a failed philosophy. I would hazard all on this board are capitalist and we are just debating whys and wherefores....

[billgregg]

1 hour ago, nashville_bound said:

i will put the 'reality' version of a free-market up against the 'reality' version of socialism and communism and win every time. 

Current terminology does us no favors. What often passes for "socialism" is just capitalism with more regulation and/or redistribution. There aren't many countries left where the workers (i.e., the state) actually own the means of production, and no serious politician is advocating such a system for the US.

Edited January 17, 2019 by billgregg55
Clarity

[titanhog]

4 hours ago, samsonh said:

The framing of this debate is always interesting. Anyone that doesn’t believe unfettered capitalism is best is a socialist or communist. Lol

Where is this "unfettered capitalism" you speak of?

Btw...anyone else notice the board's usual troll started another fire...like usual?

[Mr_Bond]

It was not my intention to start a debate about any of this, but only to reference how we can solve our transportation problems (in the broadest sense of the term).  My point is this: cars, buses, trains, scooter and, possibly, transportation drones are not invented by government but by private enterprises seeking to the meet the needs of paying customers.  Even if our local government was going to come up with a solution, it would be paid for by our tax dollars so we, the voting and paying public, would need to be convinced that government's solution was viable.

So, we should vote for council members who will allow private enterprise to come up with new ideas, like scooters, and allow us, the voting and paying public, the freedom to test the viability of the ideas.

[e-dub]

Eh, that comment didn't help matters...

Edited January 17, 2019 by e-dub

[Mr_Bond]

Probably not.  Sorry about that, everyone!

Civility.  That's what we need, civility.

Well, back to the Transportation thread!!!!

[e-dub]

I was saying that mine didn't help anything, @Mr_Bond.

[titanhog]

1 minute ago, e-dub said:

I was saying that mine didn't help anything, @Mr_Bond.

Honestly though...there's only one poster who continually makes comments that are meant to incite...and it's neither of you.  All you have to do is scroll through the comments on this page and it's plain to see.  This is a common theme with this person...and always disruptive.

[e-dub]

I don't find grilled_cheese's posts to be disruptive, though. He/she is a member of the forum who posts their opinion on things just like the rest of us.

[henburg]

5 minutes ago, e-dub said:

I don't find grilled_cheese's posts to be disruptive, though. He/she is a member of the forum who posts their opinion on things just like the rest of us.

I think they post some tongue-in-cheek things sometimes, but I don't think that it's fair to act like they're the only one who ever does anything like that. For the record, I don't think that @Mr_Bond was meaning to incite an argument at all. Still, his initial post was exemplary of a pattern that I see a lot around here, which is loading posts with connotative language and buzzwords that heavily implies invitation to political arguments. Again, I don't know if it's always the poster's intentions for their thoughts to be read this way, but I know that there have been a couple of times where I had to try and stop myself from responding and advancing a discussion that wasn't really appropriate for this forum. 

In keeping this on topic for transportation, I would caution against the free market necessarily being the ultimate solution to our transportation problems. In reality, the only private solutions that I have seen is ride-sharing (Uber, Lyft) and alternative forms (Bird and Lime). While these are nice contributions in their own right, they don't necessarily solve the problem of volume or accessibility in relation to congestion. Amtrak and Greyhound are private transportation systems that aren't exactly innovative or even well-run in a lot of cases. I also don't know if I feel completely comfortable with profitability being the chief-motivator behind a city's transportation system, but if there are better examples I'd be willing to check them out. 

[Mr_Bond]

2 hours ago, henburg said:

In keeping this on topic for transportation, I would caution against the free market necessarily being the ultimate solution to our transportation problems. In reality, the only private solutions that I have seen is ride-sharing (Uber, Lyft) and alternative forms (Bird and Lime). While these are nice contributions in their own right, they don't necessarily solve the problem of volume or accessibility in relation to congestion. Amtrak and Greyhound are private transportation systems that aren't exactly innovative or even well-run in a lot of cases. I also don't know if I feel completely comfortable with profitability being the chief-motivator behind a city's transportation system, but if there are better examples I'd be willing to check them out. 

I'm in agreement that we cannot wait on the free market to be the ultimate solution (unless we want to speculate about a world we don't live in today).  The buyer of the biggest solutions will be government, in some form.  The creative ideas, such as ride-sharing and scooters, come from the free market but government and their corporate cronies (taxi companies, for example) often step in to shutdown, regulate, or tax the new ideas before they have chance for the citizens to vote with their money as to the enjoyment and viability of the new ideas.  Many new ideas fail but the ones that don't, matter.  We should protect the 'try, fail, and try again' process so that the workable solutions eventually emerge.

My final point is that we, the voters who seek a solution to the transportation problems and are doing a little something about it by participating in this forum, should pay attention to a political candidate's attitude toward these types of new ideas.  We need leaders who will contribute to solutions, not automatically block new ideas.  Maybe we should ask the candidates to answer some questions about transit.

Okay, I'm done.  Anyone want to talk about scooters?  I almost rode one from The Gulch to East Nashville yesterday but decided that the 3 mile trip during rush hour was too dangerous.