The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[BnaBreaker]

1 hour ago, LA_TN said:

In regards to the proposed tunnel, they should reminded the voters that LRT could transport them into or out of the downtown core in about 30 seconds - vs. the 10-30 minutes it takes by car during rush hour. And you don't have to park or pay for parking

Exactly... could you just imagine how popular an option it would be on days when there are events like the New Years celebration or CMA Fan Fest or NFL draft or NHL playoff games or hell, just a regular old weekend night for crying out loud... I'm sorry, but that was a great plan... Nashville got duped.  

[markhollin]

I-440 update.

Looking west from Franklin Rd. underneath the I-440/I-65 spaghetti bowl:

Looking east:

[downtownresident]

7 hours ago, LA_TN said:

In regards to the proposed tunnel, they should reminded the voters that LRT could transport them into or out of the downtown core in about 30 seconds - vs. the 10-30 minutes it takes by car during rush hour. And you don't have to park or pay for parking

Not only that, but downtowns streets are far to narrow to carry LTR and vehicle traffic within the same ROW, and Nashville’s downtown grid is too broken for us to lose any additional arteries into or out of downtown for vehicle traffic. A tunnel makes sense downtown, IMO. 

[rookzie]

21 hours ago, LA_TN said:

In regards to the proposed tunnel, they should reminded the voters that LRT could transport them into or out of the downtown core in about 30 seconds - vs. the 10-30 minutes it takes by car during rush hour. And you don't have to park or pay for parking

20 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Exactly... could you just imagine how popular an option it would be on days when there are events like the New Years celebration or CMA Fan Fest or NFL draft or NHL playoff games or hell, just a regular old weekend night for crying out loud... I'm sorry, but that was a great plan... Nashville got duped.  

14 hours ago, downtownresident said:

Not only that, but downtowns streets are far to narrow to carry LTR and vehicle traffic within the same ROW, and Nashville’s downtown grid is too broken for us to lose any additional arteries into or out of downtown for vehicle traffic. A tunnel makes sense downtown, IMO. 

The downtown streets indeed are narrow ─ too narrow to accommodate LRT in dedicated lanes with motor traffic without undue disruption.  Even compared to Memphis, which has a much larger gridded infrastructure, Nashville's downtown roads pretty much have been restrictive in R.o.W. and in intersection corner geometry.

Of course, back during the first half of last century, Memphis had been a much larger commercial and industrial base scale than had Nashville.  Memphis waxed "big" commercially and with its infrastructure, during the early 20th century.  Historically then, Memphis’ surface transport needs were considerably more than those of Nashville.  While Memphis’ plans for light rail seem to have been deferred indefinitely, Memphis also has a much less broken and misaligned street grid, than does Nashville.  And although Memphis has only streetcars, its three lines actually have performed reasonably well in mixed traffic.  This doesn’t compare to LRT as a true rapid mass mover, but it does run along both narrow and relatively wide streets.  I also realize that almost a mile of Main Street is reserved just for the streetcar (trolley).

Portland’s [OR], MAX is a good example that shows that a city can still run LRT along some stretches of narrow streets and get people into and out of the core.  No, in practice that’s not as efficient as having a dedicated pathway, as does San Francisco’s former streetcar lines converted to LRT, some of which have center-running trains such as the N-Judah line.  Plus SF MTA moved the downtown portions of its LRT lines into a tunnel, which it refers to as the Market Street Subway.  Portland, as well as Memphis, also has a better continuous street grid than does Nashville.

Most of Portland’s downtown streets traversed by MAX are narrow, and Portland has  does not use a central terminal, instead using Pioneer Square and Pioneer Place as a main meeting point.   The roads serving these interchange points – Yamhill, Morrison, 5th and 6th streets – are as narrow as some side streets of downtown Nashville, and in some cases these are even narrower than some of Nashville’s downtown side roads.  Yet Portland’s traffic-control strategy has meant that it has had to designate these streets as one-way, to get people “MAX’d” into and out of downtown, while running in mixed traffic.  Once away from the central core, MAX then whisks away on dedicated R.o.W.   It also must be conceded that Portland has more river crossings than Nashville.  Portland opened the Tilikum Crossing car-free bridge nearly 4 years ago, to serve transit, cyclists, and pedestrians, and it has discussed building an additional bridge for general traffic use.

The point in all this is that, while a tunnel would be ideal to handle the grade-separation problem, in conjunction with circumventing the use of jammed, and narrow streets, a compromise could be worked out for downtown Nashville, since the narrow streets are not going away.  If a tunnel is no longer considered, then Nashville will have to figure out how to utilize its narrow streets for LRT – just as has Portland – if it ever plans to implement LRT accessible to and from downtown.  Either a tunnel or a combination of tunnel and elevated, as with the limited Detroit People Mover (DPM) and its much larger-scale, more comprehensive brother Sky Train (TransLink of Vancouver, BC), would be the more costly extreme to handle disruptive events, which currently are on the brink of choking downtown Nashville to death.

Edited August 31, 2019 by rookzie

[PaulChinetti]

Bicycles ruining everything! Haha

 

[smeagolsfree]

8 hours ago, PaulChinetti said:

Bicycles ruining everything! Haha

 

They may need to ban them.

[markhollin]

 I-440 Progress.

Looking west from Belmont Blvd. overpass:

Looking east from Belmont Blvd. overpass:


 

[markhollin]

I-440 update.  Looking west from Franklin Rd. underneath the I-65/I-440 spaghetti bowl:

 

[markhollin]

Two different stories on metro Nashville’s traffic from Williamson and Marshall Counties:

A friend of mine who lives on the south side of Franklin started a new job downtown at Cummins Station several months ago. From her driveway to the parking lot is 25 miles, and includes 9 stop lights.  She was dreading that it would take more than an hour each way in commute time.  Turns out that she is averaging 40 minutes inbound (usually during the 7:30-8:15 PM window), and 35 minutes outbound (normally in the 5:45-6:30 PM window).  In fact, one day, she made it home in 28 minutes!  The longest it has taken either way was 1 hour, and that only happened once.  She says that from her former job on Carothers Parkway to her home (about 8 miles), the commute was often the SAME amount of time.

Another friend of mine lives in Lewisburg, and often travels to the Madison neighborhood to visit with his grandchildren. It is 72 miles, and includes 10 stop lights. He laments that 15 years ago he used to make the trip in an hour (methinks he might’ve been breaking some laws to do so).  Now, he grumbles that it takes 90 minutes.  That still seems like really good time to me cutting through the heart of a 2 million population metro to make that journey.  Honestly, I can’t think of ANY peer city where a similar undertaking would take less than 2 hours.  

[nashmoney]

New payment system, upgrades coming to WeGo Star

This is good news. Looks like WeGo Star (lol... The name is hilarious) is maintaining or growing ridership. I definitely think the trains need to be replaced. 

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/new-payment-system-upgrades-coming-to-wego-star

 

[BnaBreaker]

That is definitely good news... but ugh... that NAME is so ridiculous.  I sound like a broken record I realize but it's just so comically awful.  Sounds like a talent show that airs on a children's TV network. 

[donNdonelson2]

Whose brother-in-law got paid a quarter of a million dollars to come up with that ridiculous rebranding of Nashville’s MTA? The new name is embarrassingly awful. How long must we suffer this foolishness before we just go back to MTA? And make my rail ride the Music City Star, thank you!

[Jamie Hall]

I will forever regret that I missed a chance to submit "I Go. You Go. WeGo!" when they were looking to blow money on new branding slogans. 

[bnacincy]

A while back I suggested a name and not everyone liked it but what is better, Music City Link or a transit system that sounds like a laxative?

Unbelievable!

[Nash_12South]

Isn't this upcoming weekend (Friday night thru Sunday) when I-65 is closed (detoured) at 440. 440 is closed at I-65 and Franklin Rd is closed from Berry to Franklin Rd for 440 bridge work? Major traffic nightmare for the alternate roads.

[PruneTracy]

19 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

Isn't this upcoming weekend (Friday night thru Sunday) when I-65 is closed (detoured) at 440. 440 is closed at I-65 and Franklin Rd is closed from Berry to Franklin Rd for 440 bridge work? Major traffic nightmare for the alternate roads.

Correct.

https://www.tn.gov/tdot/news/2019/8/9/i-440-reconstruction-progress-update.html

[PaulChinetti]

5 minutes ago, PruneTracy said:

Correct.

https://www.tn.gov/tdot/news/2019/8/9/i-440-reconstruction-progress-update.html

That is some genius level planning on their part. Pilgrimage is this weekend down in Franklin. I'm sure those 20,000 people won't need to drive through this intersection. Yikes.

[CenterHill]

3 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

That is some genius level planning on their part. Pilgrimage is this weekend down in Franklin. I'm sure those 20,000 people won't need to drive through this intersection. Yikes.

And you have the  Vandy/LSU game and a TSU home game 

[Mr_Bond]

Looks like a great weekend to stay home and get some honey-dos done.

[grilled_cheese]

52 minutes ago, CenterHill said:

And you have the  Vandy/LSU game and a TSU home game 

More proof that that state of TN actively tries to sabotage the great city of Nashville.

[PruneTracy]

1 hour ago, PaulChinetti said:

That is some genius level planning on their part. Pilgrimage is this weekend down in Franklin. I'm sure those 20,000 people won't need to drive through this intersection. Yikes.

1 hour ago, CenterHill said:

And you have the  Vandy/LSU game and a TSU home game 

8 minutes ago, grilled_cheese said:

More proof that that state of TN actively tries to sabotage the great city of Nashville.

If they are major traffic-generating events then TDOT should have added them to the weekend closure restrictions in the design-build RFP. There were already restrictions for Fan Fair, Titans games, the marathon, Vandy's and TSU's homecoming, and the NFL draft, in addition to the standard holiday restrictions (Easter, Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's). If you add all Vandy and TSU home games you get to the point where there are no eligible weekends for a five-month stretch to do this work.

[Nash_12South]

There are probably a dozen ways to achieve this work without closing the roads for an entire weekend. This likely is the most cost effective method rather than least inconvenient one. 

That said, it’s not the end of the world. I just imagine if the people making this decision lived nearby, it would be handled differently.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Nash_12South

[CenterHill]

Add this in the mix.     A Global Climate Strike encouraging people in cities around the world to stage protests against climate change inaction.     A Nashville group is scheduling an event here for 6:30pm downtown on Friday.     TDOT closes 440 at 9pm, about the time all these people would be leaving downtown.   

 

[donNdonelson2]

37 minutes ago, CenterHill said:

Add this in the mix.     A Global Climate Strike encouraging people in cities around the world to stage protests against climate change inaction.     A Nashville group is scheduling an event here for 6:30pm downtown on Friday.     TDOT closes 440 at 9pm, about the time all these people would be leaving downtown.   

 

They will all arrive on foot, so no traffic issues for them. Cars and fossils fuels BAD.

[rookzie]

20 hours ago, donNdonelson2 said:

Whose brother-in-law got paid a quarter of a million dollars to come up with that ridiculous rebranding of Nashville’s MTA? The new name is embarrassingly awful. How long must we suffer this foolishness before we just go back to MTA? And make my rail ride the Music City Star, thank you!

 

21 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

That is definitely good news... but ugh... that NAME is so ridiculous.  I sound like a broken record I realize but it's just so comically awful.  Sounds like a talent show that airs on a children's TV network. 

 

22 hours ago, nashmoney said:

New payment system, upgrades coming to WeGo Star

This is good news. Looks like WeGo Star (lol... The name is hilarious) is maintaining or growing ridership. I definitely think the trains need to be replaced. 

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/new-payment-system-upgrades-coming-to-wego-star

 

 

The payment system is intended to become systemwide eventually ─ not just for the Star, where it will make its début.

I never cared for "Music City Star" as a brand, although admittedly I never had an alternative in mind.  It just doesn't have a "ring" to it, anymore than does the name New Knoxville, OH.  The public responds more favorably to imagery of figures and shapes ─ not just words alone.   In a manner of speaking, the word "Star" as part of a corridor or service in name and in print looks sort of tacky.  From what I recently heard from a different dialog as a reliable source, the new name for the train service was supposed to be called the "WeGo Star", as it seems to be called currently by popularity, but from I heard, I believe that that idea reportedly was to be dropped, when it was discovered that there was already WeGo Star but as a motorized scooter made by an established Asian scooter company.  The new name is now, simply, the "Star", from what I was told from an inside source.

And "WeGo" is not original, as some decision-makers might have thought.  Maybe they just assumed that Nashvillians would be too run-of-the-mill to ever catch onto the fact that "Wego" (lower-case 'g') is a bus system in Niagara Falls, ON, and which has already around over half a decade before the decision to change to the WeGo brand down here.  A graphic of of musical notes ─ some array of staff, treble cleff, and a note or two ─ would be a great thematic enhancement IMO.  Along with that, a more imaginative moniker such as "Rhythm" (as in "Ride the Rhythm") would be more head-turning than "WeGo".   

At least one of the three EMD (ElectroMotive Division of GM) model F40PH units was recently returned from the North, after being outshopped a second time (under RTA ownership since 2005) for another projected 15 years of service.  These units were built originally  during the mid-1970s through around 1985.   Also the existing passengers cars, referred to as "bi-level gallery commuter" cars are very old ─ with carbon-steel bodies, some of that vintage of which were built during the 1950s and '60s (for the Chicago and Northwestern RR, before being inherited by Chicago's RTA, rebranded as "Metra").  Received third-hand, they have long outlived their cost-effective serviceable life.   The RTA has to vote this fall on approving part of a Capital Improvement budget, to fund replacement cars.  Hopefully, both local and state government leadership can become more conductive to prioritizing such expenditures, beyond the capabilities of the RTA alone.  Also, it is my understanding that the replacement cars will be of stainless steel bodies, but not brand new.  Instead, they too are to be refurbished, including their trucks (wheel bogie assemblies).  I do not know whether or not they will be equipped with restrooms; the current fleet does not have restrooms.

Not withstanding the mixed sentiment about the name WeGo, the name Music City Star never quite made it as an appropriate name for a commuter service and evoked a lot of confusion with Nashville visitors, many who thought it a was a tourist operation that served country music venues.  The new color scheme should unify all facets of Nashville public transit, since local and regional transit was well overdue for a rebranding.

.