The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[smeagolsfree]

Again I say they may be coming after Cooper with pitchfork's and torches when he tries to pay for this. Just remember the old Frankenstein movie..."pitchfork's and torches"!

[Nashvillain]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-16/jaywalking-laws-don-t-make-streets-safer?srnd=citylab

Article on jaywalking laws and how they're detrimental to public safety as well as racially discriminatory--relevant in light of the rash of pedestrian fatalities recently here in Nashville (complete sentences are not in my repertoire this morning)

[Nash_12South]

I quickly went through the article. I can see the arguments but I wonder what Broadway would be like if folks could  just walk anywhere, anytime. Traffic in downtown would be great fun.

[smeagolsfree]

19 minutes ago, Nash_12South said:

I quickly went through the article. I can see the arguments but I wonder what Broadway would be like if folks could  just walk anywhere, anytime. Traffic in downtown would be great fun.

You must not go down on Broadway much as people just walk anywhere and anytime they like. Against the light, in the middle of the street, in the street, and the list goes on. As a driver, I try to avoid that stretch as much as possible when there are a lot of pedestrians around because most of the people visiting have had a few too many or just have their head up their rear end, and are from Podunck Arkansas and are looking up at the tall buildings and saying, OMG with their mouth wide open.

Lower Broad is a case for just shutting it down to traffic but the business owners like Steve Smith are too dense to see it would help, not hurt.

[bnacincy]

37 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

You must not go down on Broadway much as people just walk anywhere and anytime they like. Against the light, in the middle of the street, in the street, and the list goes on. As a driver, I try to avoid that stretch as much as possible when there are a lot of pedestrians around because most of the people visiting have had a few too many or just have their head up their rear end, and are from Podunck Arkansas and are looking up at the tall buildings and saying, OMG with their mouth wide open.

Lower Broad is a case for just shutting it down to traffic but the business owners like Steve Smith are too dense to see it would help, not hurt.

The whole traffic situation is a part of the grittiness that gives Lower Broad its appeal-cutting that off would make it feel more sedate.

No more "transpotainment" in other words.

What they need to do is finish putting in the rest of the bollards.

Perhaps occasionally on the weekends or maybe a Predators game night but please not all the time.

Broadway is not like Beale Street-it is the major thoroughfare leaving downtown to West Nashville-its cross streets move traffic from downtown to South Nashville and back. 

All you have to do is look at what happened in Memphis on Main Street with Mid America Mall and in Chicago with State Street Mall.

And didn't they make 2nd Ave a pedestrian only street for a while in the evenings? They don't do that anymore do they?

[Nashvillain]

2 hours ago, Nash_12South said:

I quickly went through the article. I can see the arguments but I wonder what Broadway would be like if folks could  just walk anywhere, anytime. Traffic in downtown would be great fun.

The article mentioned that pedestrian fatalities (and injuries) are more likely to happen on high speed roads with few cross walks or sidewalks and where people still need to walk. So, like Dickerson Pike and Gallatin Pike which have seen at least 5 pedestrian fatalities this year alone. Furthermore, the article didn't really advocate for or give examples where pedestrians are encouraged to cross anywhere, anytime. It simply advocated for decriminalizing jaywalking which might have the ancillary effect of putting more responsibility on drivers as opposed to all the responsibility on pedestrians. The country with the safest roads, Norway, still has crosswalks and signals

[smeagolsfree]

In Las Vegas there are barriers to keep you from crossing the strip. You have to go the extra block or two to cross via the skybridge. I would be all for that here. As a matter of fact there needs to be a number of skybridges over several areas especially around the MCC.

I would be all for limiting pedestrian street crossing from 1st all the way to the Interstate and have skybridges over Broadway every two blocks and skybridges over the Interstate as well.

[BnaBreaker]

25 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

In Las Vegas there are barriers to keep you from crossing the strip. You have to go the extra block or two to cross via the skybridge. I would be all for that here. As a matter of fact there needs to be a number of skybridges over several areas especially around the MCC.

I would be all for limiting pedestrian street crossing from 1st all the way to the Interstate and have skybridges over Broadway every two blocks and skybridges over the Interstate as well.

Skybridges, in my opinion, are an outdated relic of the seventies and eighties used by municipalities as a last ditch solution once they have given up on trying to actually build their cities with pedestrians in mind.  They are killers to street level retail too.  

[smeagolsfree]

13 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Skybridges, in my opinion, are an outdated relic of the seventies and eighties used by municipalities as a last ditch solution once they have given up on trying to actually build their cities with pedestrians in mind.  They are killers to street level retail too.  

Las Vegas has a vibrant street level retail activation. You just can't cross in the middle of the street, so you are forced to walk the sidewalk to the next bridge before you can cross, so you have to pass that retail.

It may not work in every city, but cities with huge tourist foot traffic like Vegas and Nashville with tons of auto traffic, it would work fine.

[Baronakim]

3 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Las Vegas has a vibrant street level retail activation. You just can't cross in the middle of the street, so you are forced to walk the sidewalk to the next bridge before you can cross, so you have to pass that retail.

It may not work in every city, but cities with huge tourist foot traffic like Vegas and Nashville with tons of auto traffic, it would work fine.

Sorry Smeagol, I completely disagree with you about skybridges.  Vegas ia a completey different street situation  from Nashville, especially at lower Broad.  The Vegas skybridges are monsters with escalators and of broad widths.  What honky tonks are  going to sacrifice their street visability for one of those monster ends in front of it?  Plus the sidewalks in Nashville are not sufficently wide enough to install these monsters without narrowing the sidewalks to pinch points.  Any of the projecting neon signages would have to go and the speed of the traffic is slower than vegas is much slower being at the end of the street at the river.  In Vegas, the street is a main thoroughfare.  Also, these mega skybridges would be subject to the ADA, very much like the elevator tower was required on the old Shelby Bridge makeover to a pedestrian only bridge.  So...these bridges would require both escalators AND elevators.  The aesthetic clash of these monster skybridges would ABSOLUTLY destroy the fun and historic ambiance of Lower Broad's honky tonk appeal.  The one skybridge Nashville needs was the one proposed some years ago over the railroad gulch.  All the other locations you and others have cited are hopelessly expensive, ugly and dangerous.  I can not imaging drunk tourists not being injured on the stairs or attempting  stupid stunts on escalators .  If Nashville wants to spend the kind of bucks to build one (or several) of these on Broadway or Demonbruem,  spend it on that magnificant cable stayed one in the Gulch!  Yes, if you have money for skybridges in Lower Broad, spend it in the Guldh.  As an architect,  my solution to the pedestrian  midstreet crossover on Lower broad from 1st to about 6th would be a physical wall about 4 or 5  feet high on both sides of Broad to literally force pedestrians to use legal crossings at the street corners.  Some form of removable metal panels, perhaps retractable ones even,  or gates could open up the wall during events when the street is closed for massive events.  Building physical walls  would greatly reduce  need for the kind of retractable flood wall proposed in the past.  The openings and ends at cross streest could be designed for insertion of flood panels to protect buildings from floods rather than the massive street areas.  This would greatly reduce the required protection to much smaller opening protections.This is similar to the flood walls in Paducah.  Wouldn't it be grand if they could be painted with a history of country music or the history of that area of Nashville  like the fantastic panels in Paducah?  Not just street art but real works of art on the sidewalk side of the walls (painted on both sides would encourage idiots to stand in traffic to take pix with their cell phones) and if used for flood protection, the art would be damaged if painted on street sides..  Also there would be people stopping their vehicles to take pix as well.  This kind of wall would have to built with substantial increases in the sidewalk widths which are desparately needed anyway.  To some extent this is is functionally accomplished now with temporary barriers like K-rails but what is needed is a permanent and integral solution with safe streetscaping.  Skybridges would not work 'fine' in Nashville, but perhaps physical walls would be a better solution.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Baronakim
added photos and flood protection possibilities

[PaulChinetti]

11 minutes ago, Baronakim said:

As an architect,  my solution to the pedestrian  midstreet crossover on Lower broad from 1st to about 6th would be a physical wall about 4 feet high on both sides of Broad to literally force pedestrians to use legal crossings at the street corners.  Some form of removable metal panels, perhaps retractable ones even,  or gates could open up the wall during events when the street is closed for massive events.  This kind of wall would have to built with substantial increases in the sidewalk widths which are desparately needed anyway.  To some extent this is is functionally accomplishesd now with temporary barriers like K-rails but what is needed is an a permanent and integral solution with safe streetscaping.  Skybridges would not work 'fine' in Nashville.

I do like the idea of flexible things like that. Push a button, Broadway  is set up for normal weekend activity. Push a button a button it's set up for Draft like activities. Push a button, walls raise on the sidewalks around the businesses and create a flood barrier, essentially turning the streets into giant canals/drainage ditches for big floods (which would be awesome and I assume ridiculously expensive).

[markhollin]

4 hours ago, Baronakim said:

As an architect,  my solution to the pedestrian  midstreet crossover on Lower broad from 1st to about 6th would be a physical wall about 4 or 5  feet high on both sides of Broad to literally force pedestrians to use legal crossings at the street corners.  Some form of removable metal panels, perhaps retractable ones even,  or gates could open up the wall during events when the street is closed for massive events.  Building physical walls  would greatly reduce  need for the kind of retractable flood wall proposed in the past.  The openings and ends at cross streest could be designed for insertion of flood panels to protect buildings from floods rather than the massive street areas.  This would greatly reduce the required protection to much smaller opening protections.This is similar to the flood walls in Paducah.  Wouldn't it be grand if they could be painted with a history of country music or the history of that area of Nashville  like the fantastic panels in Paducah?  

I like these ideas.  : )

[smeagolsfree]

AT least we can talk about it on here. I will say there are a lot of stupid people walking around downtown and out of the hotels, so lets go back to the original version and just shut lower Broad down to traffic. 

As far as transportainment, we did just fine before we had it, and would be no skin of my rear if we did without it, but I realize it would raise a big stink if they did. At some point they are going to have to heavily regulate it and limit where they can go, what hours of operation, etc. I don' think there is another city in this country that has tractors and pull behind hay wagons driving drunk people around their downtown. This idiocy should be banned.

As far as the skybridges go drunks will do what drunks do and to that I say I do not have any sympathy for them and their stupid antics. If they do something that will get the seriously injured or killed then they will qualify for the Darwin Award. 

We are going to have to address the situation of people crossing wherever they want to cross coming out of these hotels at some point. Nashville has done and is doing a poor job of traffic and pedestrian management downtown. They need to take the crosswalks a step further and add verbal signals to them...DON'T WALK... WALK...I have seen that in numerous other cities and Nashville is always trying to save a buck doing things on the cheap and now they are in a budget situation and cant' even afford a new police car if things work out with the referendum.

Another example of doing things on the cheap were the bollards, as they ran out of money to do all of Lower broad. Someone miscalculated how much they needed to do the project, however I really like the idea about a removable wall. But again the bar owners on one side of the street will complain people can' see their bar from the other side of the street. 

[BnaBreaker]

You're definitely right Ron that something needs to be done to address that situation, I just personally don't think a Skybridge is the right fit for that area.  I love the ideas that @Baronakim proposed.  Also, I know this would probably never fly since Nashville seems to be allergic to them, but it seems like an elevated, planted median of some kind would do the trick as well in terms of forcing people to cross at street corners.

[Nicholson]

This is a good article about Mayor Cooper's updated Draft Transportation Plan. The only thing off is the last sentence about Metro Council voting on it in Novemeber. I've read other articles that say the plan would be presented to Councilmembers in early 2021.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/21143680/mayors-office-releases-longer-draft-of-transportation-plan?fbclid=IwAR2j5H37vCI7WHn-rE71MnsPbwCkrBZYpf8T8mIboxZlGcW19UfcalDR-w0

Here's a link to an updated draft of Mayor Cooper's Draft Transportation Plan:

 https://www.nashville.gov/Portals/0/SiteContent/MayorsOffice/docs/Transportation/Metro-Nashville-Transportation-Plan-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR30_Oe_EDyUW2x3m7Lq3sQvKkfwgt_xoostH0eUjatbak2R5JFgjx3HpCc

The public comment period is wrapping up soon, on Oct 31st.

Here's a link to the survey for more feedback on the draft: 

https://hub.nashville.gov/s/request-type/a0ut00000015BiqAAE/transportation-plan-survey?language=en_US&fbclid=IwAR2Il3mKxLVYDIi7ReFqqothe4CjWPxBSsH1oQy_jxJzGuLJE-fmA_haMqY

These are two Neighborhood Transit Centers. They're referenced in Section 2's "Financial Strategies for Transportation"

 

[BnaBreaker]

WeGo potty. 

I've had a couple evening beverages and that's as much input as I can muster.  

[BnaBreaker]

*sigh*... Austin voters just approved this plan, which is more or less what Nashville failed to do... complete with downtown subway! ... but hey... we painted our buses purple, so... there's that, I guess.  

Edited November 4, 2020 by BnaBreaker

[PaulChinetti]

Is it all new lines?

[donNdonelson2]

1 hour ago, PaulChinetti said:

Is it all new lines?

This is the current metro rail map on Austin’s transit website.

And their full system map.

Edited November 5, 2020 by donNdonelson2

[smeagolsfree]

One thing to remember is Austin voters voted down the first huge attempt. Traffic got even worse, so they voted on this one. Once COVID is over and traffic goes back to normal, folks will start to moan and groan again.

Once Nashville gets new leadership, the financial mess is cleared up and COVID is over, then we will see a new initiative. I do think that Cooper will be a 1 term mayor and that we will have a progressive candidate vs Steve "Angry" Glover, the next election.  Steve Glover will do something else stupid like videoing himself in a toilet farting again or making an appearance on FOX looking like a total idiot. He is very adept at making himself look foolish.

And folks this is not bash Glover as I do not have any love for Cooper. Both are not very good IMO. They are from different sides of the political spectrum. We just need common sense in the Mayors office and we have not had that in a while. As  a matter of fact I will say we have not had an exceptional mayor since Bredesen who got Nashville on the modern track it is now, love him or hate him. Purcell was a good man but a weak leader and all about sidewalks. Karl Dean did  great as far as the MCC, but tried to do too many things under the radar.   Megan Barry, the name says it all. David Briley made Purcell look like Mr. Universe.

Dont get this into a political discussion here as I am trying to make a point as far as leadership goes. Nashville will not have any kind of a viable transit plan until we have a viable leader willing to show the city the way who can sell it to the voters. It does not need to be shoved down the throats of the voters either. A bus only system here WILL NOT WORK, unless you have dedicated lanes everywhere and that is not going to happen.

 

[rookzie]

On 11/5/2020 at 7:35 AM, smeagolsfree said:

One thing to remember is Austin voters voted down the first huge attempt. Traffic got even worse, so they voted on this one. Once COVID is over and traffic goes back to normal, folks will start to moan and groan again.

Once Nashville gets new leadership, the financial mess is cleared up and COVID is over, then we will see a new initiative. I do think that Cooper will be a 1 term mayor and that we will have a progressive candidate vs Steve "Angry" Glover, the next election.  Steve Glover will do something else stupid like videoing himself in a toilet farting again or making an appearance on FOX looking like a total idiot. He is very adept at making himself look foolish.

And folks this is not bash Glover as I do not have any love for Cooper. Both are not very good IMO. They are from different sides of the political spectrum. We just need common sense in the Mayors office and we have not had that in a while. As  a matter of fact I will say we have not had an exceptional mayor since Bredesen who got Nashville on the modern track it is now, love him or hate him. Purcell was a good man but a weak leader and all about sidewalks. Karl Dean did  great as far as the MCC, but tried to do too many things under the radar.   Megan Barry, the name says it all. David Briley made Purcell look like Mr. Universe.

Dont get this into a political discussion here as I am trying to make a point as far as leadership goes. Nashville will not have any kind of a viable transit plan until we have a viable leader willing to show the city the way who can sell it to the voters. It does not need to be shoved down the throats of the voters either. A bus only system here WILL NOT WORK, unless you have dedicated lanes everywhere and that is not going to happen.

 

At my current age, 10 months from turning 70....,

...if Swami Ronnie's crystal ball holds, then I just might make it to AT LEAST SEE an ambitious transit plan passed ─ even if nothing else.  But I surely won't be the kind of fool to hold my breath on it..

[12Mouth]

And in case anyone missed it, the guy who designed the double decker freeway/automatic everything plan turns out to be absolutely bonkers (and put Swope on his payroll): https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/architectural-visionarys-incredible-claims-riddled-with-incredible-questions-nc5-investigation-finds

Edited November 9, 2020 by 12Mouth

[ArchitectBarbie]

2 hours ago, 12Mouth said:

And in case anyone missed it, the guy who designed the double decker freeway/automatic everything plan turns about to be absolutely bonkers (and put Swope on his payroll): https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/architectural-visionarys-incredible-claims-riddled-with-incredible-questions-nc5-investigation-finds

and unethical per AIA Code of Ethics, yikes.

[PaulChinetti]

6 hours ago, 12Mouth said:

And in case anyone missed it, the guy who designed the double decker freeway/automatic everything plan turns about to be absolutely bonkers (and put Swope on his payroll): https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/architectural-visionarys-incredible-claims-riddled-with-incredible-questions-nc5-investigation-finds

So literally just a gigantic LIAR and people keep believing him. 

Not false claims, or discrepancies, lies. 

[KJHburg]

On 11/4/2020 at 7:10 PM, PaulChinetti said:

Is it all new lines?

Basically yes they do have a commuter rail line that comes near downtown from the north but is at as far as rail.  the problem with Austin's plan in my opinion is that their employment hubs are dispersed through the metro area.  For example Apple is building a campus for 10,000 people in the far north and will not be served by this as far as I can see.  Plus they have 6000 employees already way far north.  Dell with 15K workers in spread out in Round Rock not covered in this plan either.  Austin property taxes are already the highest in the state of high property taxes so I wonder how this is going to work as it is based on raising property taxes.   With tech employing so many people in Austin I wonder how many will return to the office long term.   Tech firms for all you hear about urban campuses most like sprawling suburban campuses.   Sure Google and Facebook have large offices in downtown Austin but much more of their tech job growth is in the suburbs. 

and yes Austin traffic is bad but not sure such an ambitious plan is worth it but I guess they will find out.  I would look for some of this to never be built.   I think you need to be incremental than this plan.  That is the lesson I think for Nashville a rail line on your busiest bus routes and go from there.  Show people it can work in certain areas like Charlotte has done with its LYNX line which is just 20 miles or little less. 

as for buses Raleigh is going with a Bus Rapid Transit  with dedicated lanes.  Houston a much larger metro area uses some rail and now expanding bus rapid transit at the same time. 

https://raleighnc.gov/services/transit-streets-and-sidewalks/bus-rapid-transit-brt

https://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/METRORapid.aspx