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The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread


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1 hour ago, GregH said:

Largely closing city center to cars seems pretty cool and worth working towards but I think we're a long way from being able to do something so big without catastrophic backlash. What I'd like to see would be a commitment to some incremental moves, closing or limiting small bits at a time but definitely adding at least SOMETHING every year. So year 1 we get the lowest of low-hanging fruit and permanently close off the lower few blocks of broadway to through traffic. Then maybe year 2 (just spitballing here) close 11th in the Gulch between 12th and Laurel. As we progress we can learn what sort of closures work in Nashville, and build credibility for future closures, because the world didn't end with the first ones.

That's pretty much the way I see it,  you have to give people an alternative that's appealing and practical but it won't happen overnight and will have to be done step by step.

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On 4/4/2022 at 2:16 PM, GregH said:

Largely closing city center to cars seems pretty cool and worth working towards but I think we're a long way from being able to do something so big without catastrophic backlash. What I'd like to see would be a commitment to some incremental moves, closing or limiting small bits at a time but definitely adding at least SOMETHING every year. So year 1 we get the lowest of low-hanging fruit and permanently close off the lower few blocks of broadway to through traffic. Then maybe year 2 (just spitballing here) close 11th in the Gulch between 12th and Laurel. As we progress we can learn what sort of closures work in Nashville, and build credibility for future closures, because the world didn't end with the first ones.

Agreed. A "bachelorette express" train from the airport to drop off in Sobro or the Gulch would go a long way to getting out-of-towners on board with this vision.

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34 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

There needs to be an extension of I-840 north from I-40 near Lebanon to connect to I-65 north of Nashville maybe as far north as just south of the Kentucky border. .  You have all the Southeast (Atlanta Florida bound traffic) and all Midwest coming from the south traffic converging on your downtown.  Tennessee needs to fix this or the growth engine of the entire state (metro Nashville) will be so choked with traffic that business will go elsewhere.   Memphis distribution going eastbound can bypass Nashville on the current 840.  But what I have seen have far more traffic heading down I-24 and I-65 into the metro area that shoots out mainly down I-24 towards Chattanooga and Atlanta and points south.    The nations 4th biggest container port is beyond Atlanta that being Savannah. 

Here is how you can make it less commuter friendly and less sprawl inducing limit the number of interchanges along the route.  And think about tolling it.   Time is money for truckers and sitting in your downtown traffic costs money if they are  heading from the midwest to Atlanta.  Florida and Texas have no income taxes either but somehow they have beltways after beltways.   Our state capital in NC is working on completing its 2nd beltway! Parts tagged I-540 and parts NC 540 the tolled parts.   Charlotte's 485 beltway is 67 miles a mile or so shorter than Atlanta's 285.   If you did this one extension of I-840 I dont think you would need to close the loop fully as this would take so much truck traffic and other passing through traffic out of your city. 

and yes you need some sort of rapid transit whether it be Bus Rapid Transit like Raleigh is doing or light rail like Charlotte has.  But something on that front needs to be done.  

Shhh.. you can't let the secret out. :tw_joy:

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KJHburg, your thoughts are as mine. Currently three of the busiest freight corridors converge right in Downtown Nashville, This has been my point on this thread. A continuation of I-840 north from Lebanon isn’t about suburban sprawl, it’s about getting the though traffic and commercial traffic out of Downtown. I know a lot of people don’t like this idea, I get their points. But no matter if Nashville builds the best mass transit system or not, the commercial truck traffic is not going away and people traveling to Georgia and Florida from the mid west and east -west on I-40 are still going to be there. The suburban traffic from outlying counties, is really not the problem. 

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Even if I-840 were extended just from I-40 west (Dickson) north to I-24 near Clarksville, that would make a huge difference. With the TN-109 leg being upgraded between I-65 at Portland and I-840 via I-40 at Lebanon, that would capture a lot (90%+??) of the through traffic. I don't think there's much traffic that goes from I-65 at Ky line to Clarksville and vice versa. 

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43 minutes ago, GregH said:

Voted "Nashville's best party train" by TripAdvisor & Nashville Guru our custom-built, open-air party trains, are best described as "Mardi Gras meets Nashville." Your party train comes complete with a large bar, coolers, ice, cups and a VIP bartender. Equipped with an impressive sound system, get ready to experience Nashville to the best music or your very own custom playlist. A large LED-lit dance floor with large benches for dancing will ensure you and your party become "Nashville Famous." We do all this with no roof! That's why they call us the ultimate party train!

Umm, I want that and I'd take it to and from the airport every time! LOL

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On 4/14/2022 at 8:43 AM, GregH said:

Voted "Nashville's best party train" by TripAdvisor & Nashville Guru our custom-built, open-air party trains, are best described as "Mardi Gras meets Nashville." Your party train comes complete with a large bar, coolers, ice, cups and a VIP bartender. Equipped with an impressive sound system, get ready to experience Nashville to the best music or your very own custom playlist. A large LED-lit dance floor with large benches for dancing will ensure you and your party become "Nashville Famous." We do all this with no roof! That's why they call us the ultimate party train!

Serious question here:  What happens on those party buses when it starts raining?  Does the party just get wilder?

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4 hours ago, titanhog said:

Forgive me if this belongs in the coffeehouse…but thought I would try it here since it’s transportation related.

Just reading this article about Elon Musk’s Boring Company and the loop they’re going to build underground in Vegas…and how his next boring machine may be able to drill 7 miles in a day, which is insane.

Wondering what you guys think about the future of tunneled roadways / mass transit for Nashville?

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/20/elon-musks-boring-company-raises-675m-to-scale-loop-projects/

If it is true, then it is a major break through. I will have to see it to believe it. He needs to make a car that will not burst in flames first! I f it works in Las Vegas then it would work here as the base is a mixture of granite, limestone, sandstone, basalt, etc.

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5 hours ago, titanhog said:

Forgive me if this belongs in the coffeehouse…but thought I would try it here since it’s transportation related.

Just reading this article about Elon Musk’s Boring Company and the loop they’re going to build underground in Vegas…and how his next boring machine may be able to drill 7 miles in a day, which is insane.

Wondering what you guys think about the future of tunneled roadways / mass transit for Nashville?

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/20/elon-musks-boring-company-raises-675m-to-scale-loop-projects/

Any sort of tunnel construction in the United States has become notorious for taking longer than initial projections and with big cost overruns, so innovation making tunneling more efficient is always a good thing.

That being said, I'm still skeptical of how all this will pan out because of Elon's ideal use for tunnels. As far as I know he's still essentially making them single-lane tesla-only tunnels, which effectively is just like adding another highway lane to increase car traffic capacity. While this tunneling method may be a significant cost improvement over traditional tunneling methods, it's still way more expensive than adding a lane to an interstate and has the downfall of serious capacity restrictions since only cars can use it. Building a 29 mile underground transportation loop to hit all of the big tourist spots in Las Vegas has some serious potential to be very popular and useful, but it won't succeed if it's filled with cars instead of trains.

As for tunneling in Nashville, I don't think we'll see very many tunnels ever constructed here regardless of use. Getting through the bedrock is incredibly difficult and expensive - I would be surprised if the methods Elon's devised to work in the desert would also work here. He might be able to come up with some methods that make tunneling here efficient eventually, but I would suspect that would be years (maybe decades) from now, if at all.

Edited by Deepdish53
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The capacity thing that Deepdish53 brings up is a very valid point. Boston's Big Dig is an engineering marvel (and one big cost overrun), but it really did nothing for the capacity of traffic on I-93 through Boston and the rush hour traffic is horrendous. People complain here about the traffic, but visit Boston - with is pretty extensive transit system - and the traffic will make you cry!

Because of the severe topography, I don't know if anything other than mass transit would make sense in an extensive tunnel system. Small ones that connect river banks where the elevation on either side are comprable to one another are options, but it is not like we would be able to have a tunnel replace Woodland or James Robertson bridges.

The Inner Loop (I-40) could "easily" be converted to a tunnel, but that is a cap and not a boring exercise.

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Isn't one of the biggest problems with the bigger cities, Boston, NYC, etc. That they get down there and just run into so much stuff that wasn't on the map and then have to deal with it?

 

Seems like tunneling in a city like Nashville, while through bedrock (which is a huge task) would be less of a hassle in that regard. 

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There are already a lot of tunnels in the core drilled with boring machines decades ago for the Thermal transfer plant which are now connected to the natural gas plant over  at the hensler site.  These are not small diameter  tunnels as they were drilled with the largest of the machines at the time.  I would think that ANY vehiculur tunnels are a pipe dream as they would surely have to be much deeper to avoid intersecting these existing ones, wouldn't they?

 

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2 hours ago, PaulChinetti said:

Isn't one of the biggest problems with the bigger cities, Boston, NYC, etc. That they get down there and just run into so much stuff that wasn't on the map and then have to deal with it?

 

Seems like tunneling in a city like Nashville, while through bedrock (which is a huge task) would be less of a hassle in that regard. 

Yes and no. Boston had alot of stuff, yes, but Boston specifically is a lot of fill, but it was also able to do cut/cover techniques due to the depth of tunnels (Boston also VE'd a train tunnel that was supposed to be under the new I-93 tunnel). The biggest thing for Nashville - other than the tunnels @Baronakimmentioned, which would be an extreme mess to work with - would be the transition from a tunnel to the surface. Cars would never be able to do that transition, and mass transit made sense because it is minimal vertical shafts at the station locations only. If Nashville was to 

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