The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[rookzie]

On 5/22/2020 at 1:51 PM, Sean blackdog said:

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 

 

 

Well, I'll just say it’s not for us to like or not, although each is entitled to open opinion.

One thing I will agree with (at least) is that they need to change from the Chicago Metra identity of the gallery bi-levels, which are going away anyway, after replacements put into service.   The color scheme on the Star's cars is not original but is actually Metra's original color scheme, applied during the 1990s.  The existing bi-levels shown were constructed of Cor-Ten steel by the Pullman Standard Co., but it's a shame that the RTA, now under the unified WeGo branding, has allowed them to fall to neglect and rust, since the service began in Sept. 2006.   And, it's not just the exterior of the train either that shows corrosion.  According to some unidentified employees at TSG (Transit Solutions Group) which maintains the cars at the Lebanon TN facility, the old gallery cars are literally rusting away on the insides, and the cars are now almost not repairable.  The car interiors are basically unchanged since going into operation on the C&NW (Chicago & Northwestern RR) commuter trains more than 50 years ago.  They will be scrapped upon retirement.

Refurbished bi-levels (built by the Edward G. Budd Co. for the former Chicago Burlington & Quincy RR) were finally approved by Metro City Council for purchase from MITrain, the branding for Ann Arbor–Detroit Regional Rail, that basically got put on hold (if not scuttled).  They've been delivered but have yet to be placed in service, and their all-stainless-steel bodies will be better suited for whatever color-scheme branding the agency chooses.   I don't know specific details on any matching purple-and/or-grey stripes to be applied to the replacement gallery cars, but I'm told that that's likely to occur before the cars are deployed.  The 7 replacement cars were delivered early last Feb. and currently are undergoing some color application.

While not my personal favorite ─ purple-grey-and-white ─ Nashville does need its own identifying color scheme association with its equipment, especially as it gets expanded to other corridors.  The paint as delivered on the Star in 2006 is looking really terrible, projecting a shabby image for the agency and Nashville.

Stainless-steel replacement cars in tow on the CSX Henderson [Ky.] Sub-division to Nashville 02-04-2020
[photo - © Jim Pearson]

[markhollin]

I-24 at Hickory Hollow Pkwy:

 

[Sean blackdog]

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 
Work on new bridge on Hickory Hollow & I-24 SE. 

[Nashvillain]

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2020/06/protests-black-communities-history-highways-george-floyd/612496/

This is what happened to North Nashville when I40 went in in the 1960s, if you didn't know

[grilled_cheese]

It has been a while since I researched it but one of the overpasses now stands on the grounds of the first club that Jimi Hendrix played in.  There really should be a plaque.

[Nashvillain]

The point is that what is going on around the country and in Nashville isn't just about police violence against black Americans, but systemic racism. It was racist policy makers and institutions that tore up black businesses and homes to put in the interstate. Disinvestment, redlining and cratering of property values followed. Instead of outreach, we sent in the police. 37208 has the highest incarceration rate in the nation.  (https://www.tennessean.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tennessean.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F2020%2F02%2F06%2Fnashville-37208-zip-code-incarceration-rate%2F4650216002%2F)

A plaque? That's justice. They already put up pictures of black civic and cultural leaders UNDER the overpass

[grilled_cheese]

On 6/3/2020 at 12:37 PM, Nashvillain said:

The point is that what is going on around the country and in Nashville isn't just about police violence against black Americans, but systemic racism. It was racist policy makers and institutions that tore up black businesses and homes to put in the interstate. Disinvestment, redlining and cratering of property values followed. Instead of outreach, we sent in the police. 37208 has the highest incarceration rate in the nation.  (https://www.tennessean.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tennessean.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F2020%2F02%2F06%2Fnashville-37208-zip-code-incarceration-rate%2F4650216002%2F)

A plaque? That's justice. They already put up pictures of black civic and cultural leaders UNDER the overpass

Which Nashville protest did you attend?

[Nashvillain]

9 hours ago, grilled_cheese said:

Which Nashville protest did you attend?

I understand, put your money where your mouth is, but whether I participate in protests or not doesn't change the facts of what I wrote. And your needing to try to invalidate the above by issuing a purity test for me is an attempt to deflect from your unwillingness to understand the history of this city (and the country) and understand why things are the way they are and, as a result, why people are so angry. Also, I attended the march yesterday and the one on Thursday. Do I at least get a B? 

[Sean blackdog]

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 
109 Gateway Bridge in Gallatin, TN. 

[markhollin]

Nashville's WeGo Public Transit has been awarded a $55.1 million grant as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

According to a news release from the Federal Transit Administration, the funds will be used for operating, preventive maintenance and administrative expenses to support transit services during the Covid-19 emergency.

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2020/06/09/nashville-awarded-55-1m-transit-grant.html?iana=hpmvp_nsh_news_headline

[Nashvillain]

1 hour ago, markhollin said:

Nashville's WeGo Public Transit has been awarded a $55.1 million grant as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

According to a news release from the Federal Transit Administration, the funds will be used for operating, preventive maintenance and administrative expenses to support transit services during the Covid-19 emergency.

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2020/06/09/nashville-awarded-55-1m-transit-grant.html?iana=hpmvp_nsh_news_headline

I'm pretty sure this is being used as a stop gap measure to cover the budget cuts proposed in this year's budget. 

[markhollin]

I-440 update.

Looking east from Belmont Blvd. overpass:

Looking NW from Belmont Blvd. overpass:

[rookzie]

On 6/3/2020 at 12:37 PM, Nashvillain said:

The point is that what is going on around the country and in Nashville isn't just about police violence against black Americans, but systemic racism. It was racist policy makers and institutions that tore up black businesses and homes to put in the interstate. Disinvestment, redlining and cratering of property values followed. Instead of outreach, we sent in the police. 37208 has the highest incarceration rate in the nation.  (https://www.tennessean.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tennessean.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F2020%2F02%2F06%2Fnashville-37208-zip-code-incarceration-rate%2F4650216002%2F)

A plaque? That's justice. They already put up pictures of black civic and cultural leaders UNDER the overpass

 

Thanks for this.   Detailing in a capstone paper and bibliography for Lipscomb's Leadership and Public Service program during the 2018-'19 academic year, I submitted a proposal, rationale, and bibliography for a high-capacity transit proposal as a keystone component for the revitalization of an "extended" Jefferson Street Corridor, from TSU Main Campus to the Riverfront commuter-rail station.  That was prior to the "crash of 2020".  Therefore the capstone proposal has become a moot issue.

I made references to such systemic racism, action of which stems from as far back as the late 1940s ─ the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, and particularly the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 and that of 1968.  State highway departments (prior to modern-day DOTs) undertook this action in nearly every city, USA of significant size, and much of the proponent movement can be attributed to the aggressively progressive ideology of New York's infamous Robert Moses. 

You name it.  Some of the worse cases of this are seemingly forever vilifying Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Nashville, Memphis, Baltimore, Boston, Twin Cities, New York (particularly the Boroughs of Queens and the Bronx), Atlanta, Bay Area, Chicago, Gary, Louisville, Indy, and New Orleans ─ and almost any other region where the motive was to connect the CBD with the proposed Interstate highway system via urban expressways.  Historically urban blacks, as well as other socio-economic groups (including whites) considered marginalized and income-poor had tended to be concentrated in the older urban-core districts closest to the heart of cities.  It virtually wiped out all of would-be historic SW Washington DC, where I attended elementary school during the very early 1960s.  These districts were sliced through like melted butter, while elimination of thousands of residential dwelling units (without replacement or equivalent standard-of-living value); disrupting existing residential walkability and the overall surface transportation network in general; redrawing and fracturing of local school district boundary lines; and commercial viability.

A detailed analysis submitted and published as a master's thesis of Hubert J. Ford at UT Knoxville (1970) of the planning and construction of I-40 through Nashville, chronicles a rather woeful illustration of forces in power and their wanton disregard for the predictably long-term results and the effects on those stakeholders whose properties and communities were affected at-large.  The minority sub-districts of North Nashville have not recovered from the devastating toll of I-40, including those of I-65 (including the segment originally designated as I-265) , I-24, Ellington Pkwy, and to a great extent the land acquisition and permanent disruptions of I-440.  The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 had included an amendment to withhold funding unless new housing was found for persons displaced by eminent domain for the purpose of Interstate highway construction.

In the case of the I-40 planning, it eventually was conceded that a proposal for a "neutral", nearly direct path of the Interstate approach into Nashville from Memphis, as originally suggested by a hired consulting firm, was amended by the State Highway Dept. (later the Tenn. DOT) to be realigned through North Nashville.  The decision to realign the path for a completely different "corridor" was based primarily on "land values", with no regard for or consideration of long-term negative effects on the communities involved.  Several "minor" concessions were offered by the Highway Dept. aimed to compensate for a portion of lost surface-road connectivity would have required removal of additional private property for frontal roads,  but the pervasive perception of distrust by community leaders against the racially lopsided authorities forestalled any efforts of purported support from those authorities.

Edited June 19, 2020 by rookzie

[MLBrumby]

Thanks Rookzie! I always read every word of your posts. And always learn so much. I was born in 1970, so I don't know the collective mindset until around 1980. No doubt, the Interstate highways were devastating to many (predominantly minority) neighborhoods, but weren't Interstates also looked at in the 1950s-1970s as a positive?  We obviously can see now the destruction they brought, but taking things in context, maybe they weren't intended to be the destructive force they actually were. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by MLBrumby

[rookzie]

14 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Thanks Rookzie! I always read every word of your posts. And always learn so much. I was born in 1970, so I don't know the collective mindset until around 1980. No doubt, the Interstate highways were devastating to many (predominantly minority) neighborhoods, but weren't Interstates also looked at in the 1950s-1970s as a positive?  We obviously can see now the destruction they brought, but taking things in context, maybe they weren't intended to be the destructive force they actually were. 

Thanks for the feedback.  Actually in part many urban and state jurisdictions utilized the funding resources provided by the Acts, at a two-fold goal:

1) As a "remedial"measure to "restore" expedient access to the central urban core, specifically the central business district, in response the claim that these areas were declining economically; and

2) As an exploitative means to justify and to fund "urban renewal", without the actual "renewal" portion.

One has to also be mindful of the status quo during the 1950s and '60s, the primary planning periods for the urban Interstate segments.  White flight was rampant, in all American cities as a rule, and Nashville as you are aware was no exception.   Indeed there were even Federal laws in place that prevented blacks from purchasing property in white neighborhoods, and it wasn't until my early teens 1964 that the first civil rights bill began to change that government policy.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 addressed segregation primarily (to which I had been accustomed, as I traveled the trains back and forth between the South and a few slightly more liberal locales in the North).  The Civil Rights Bill of 1968 addressed discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race (et. al.), and the 5-year span from the 1964 bill made a highly noticeable difference, as whites made mass exodus to the suburbs, which by then were primarily the pre-1963 unincorporated areas of Davidson County, as well as to towns immediately bordering the county.  This "phenomenon" (as it were), had been a common and predictable occurrence throughout the U.S. ─ Interstate or not.

But the fact that the demographics began to change dramatically within the inner-core sub-districts particularly those closest to the CBD, historically the less advantaged and the income-poor, constrained by cost of living and mobility, became the new primary occupants of the older, more established neighborhoods.  While some of the worst-maintained housing often was found in the inner-core districts, arguably blighted and neglected to an extent (but not necessarily), many such districts had been well maintained by occupants who formerly would not have been allowed in such housing.  It had been primarily these sub-districts which had become adversely affected ─ directly or otherwise ─ with the advent of the urban expressway.

It was economically much more tenable for the State to condemn property and raze structures where these "lesser-valued" groups of contiguous land parcels  were located.  Unfortunately this also meant the state and the city often encountered much earlier, highly organized, and usually fierce opposition from land-owners within the more wealthy areas than that within within the "lower" mean-valued areas.  It also must be noted that authorities often worked without fair disclosure to those stakeholders who would become most affected by the construction of an urban expressway segment.  While some whites united with blacks educators of Fisk, TSU (then-recently renamed from Tenn. Agricultural and Industrial State Univ.), and Meharry Medical College to support the claim that the agencies had failed to include them on final planning of the expressway, which literally would fracture North Nashville, it was a matter of too little too late, according to the district court, once the "preferred"route had been finalized.  And the thing is, it was the State which pre-empted the planning process ─ not the city of Nashville, which typically deferred most of its autonomy to the state during the Beverly Briley administration of the early-mid-to late '60s when the planning was finalized and construction began.

Although the I-40/I-265 (now I-65) construction through North Nashville did not affect my family-owned property directly, nevertheless it did have an immediate effect on my teen-age living, and mobility, primarily with the massive permanent disruption of so much surface connectivity.  The lack of connectivity within near-core neighborhoods, such as the portion of North Nashville dissected by the interstate highway system fifty years ago, form a significantly less seamless transit access to job centers.  The long-demise of commercial and recreational activity along Jefferson Street and the lack of roadway connectivity are symptoms of discriminatory policy issues stemming from measures undertaken nearly 2/3 a century ago.

This pretty much sums it up, as far as the benefits of the urban expressway is concerned to the urban-core dwellers being overshadowed by the purported value of accessibility for those primarily who only pass through those same areas.  Highways, which were peddled as redevelopment and progress, were actually ripping through poor ethnic neighborhoods, without actually providing the funds necessary for the redevelopment promised.  The only portions of North Nashville which have undergone relative recent resurgence are the more gentrified  and primarily white-inhabited sites of Germantown, Salemtown, Buena Vista, Hope Gardens, and along the North Midtown Charlotte Ave Corridor (each of these having racial exceptions) , while pockets of redevelopment have begun to show along a few other sites unrelated to those sub-districts.  The North Capitol district was generally more industrial than residential, except the portion formerly referred to as "Hell's half acre" immediately north of and west of Capitol Hill.  However, as a whole, the decimation of North Nashville by I-40 has never recovered for the black community, which actually was rather bustling until around 1968, the year I became a senior in H.S.

Edited June 19, 2020 by rookzie

[MLBrumby]

Wow! I can feel your emotions just as if it happened yesterday. Truly, in a city like Nashville (and many others) the expressways became a way to pass through (or in/out) quickly.  Thanks for that insiders' description of so much that affected so many in a relatively short time.

[nashvylle]

 

[MLBrumby]

One of Nashville's biggest transportation disgraces is the 'junction' of Ellington and I-24, just east of downtown. In my Vandy Engineering alumni publication (Solutions) delivered today, I snapped a pic of the section on "Redesign of Nashville's Spaghetti Junction" (although I've never heard it referred to as such).  Anyway, here's a pic of the rendering. I'll post a pic of the article later. 

 

[markhollin]

The $154.8 million rebuild of I-440 to fully reopen on July 2nd, one month ahead of schedule.  It's the state's largest and most expensive road project to date.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/i-440-to-fully-reopen-on-july-2-one-month-ahead-of-schedule

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2020/06/24/interstate-440-construction-nashville-complete-july/3249967001/

[PaulChinetti]

Baby steps everywhere. 
 

https://dailyhive.com/edmonton/edmonton-remove-minimum-parking-requirements?auto=true

[Bos2Nash]

On 6/22/2020 at 4:15 PM, MLBrumby said:

One of Nashville's biggest transportation disgraces is the 'junction' of Ellington and I-24, just east of downtown. In my Vandy Engineering alumni publication (Solutions) delivered today, I snapped a pic of the section on "Redesign of Nashville's Spaghetti Junction" (although I've never heard it referred to as such).  Anyway, here's a pic of the rendering. I'll post a pic of the article later. 

I was actually speaking with Eric Hoke over at NCDC about this project awhile back and they were very excited for what the Vandy students were working on. The term "Spaghetti Junction" is certainly a familiar term within the planning world as many cities have these monstrosities. 

[Sean blackdog]

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 
I-440 Completion celebrated with a caravan. Workers watching and admiring their work. The project was completed ahead of schedule.

[markhollin]

The Music City Star has several upgrades being prepared, some that will be ready as early as mid-July:

- Refurbished cars purchased from the Metra Commuter Rail system in Chicago and have stainless steel construction with new seating and increased safety.

- The expansion of Mt. Juliet's parking lot is ahead of schedule with hopes to be done around the end of the year. The Mt. Juliet station had about 164 parking spaces and is adding 99 spaces. The expansion also includes increased lighting, bicycle parking, landscaping and a path for pedestrian parking.

- The rehabilitating of four locomotives with one complete and one in progress. All four locomotives are expected to be finished by the end of 2021.

- Infrastructure is being updated at all seven Music City Star stations to install new ticket vending machines and platform validation equipment. The system will enable smart card and mobile payment options. The work is expected to be finished by the end of the year with full deployment throughout 2021.

More at The Tennessean here:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/wilson/2020/07/02/music-city-star-upgrades-unveiled-wilson-and-east-davidson-county-riders/3282039001/

[Vrtigo]

41 minutes ago, markhollin said:

...and a path for pedestrian parking.

?

[Sean blackdog]

2 hours ago, Vrtigo said:

?

For example. 
path for pedestrian parking 

Edited July 3, 2020 by Sean blackdog