Jump to content

The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread


TopTenn

Recommended Posts


Negotiations with a Georgia-based parking company to overhaul Nashville's antiquated parking meter system will move forward despite protests from another prospective bidder.

Metro's Procurement Appeals Board unanimously determined Monday that Metro's purchasing agent properly followed rules for soliciting bids for outside contracts. The selection of LAZ Parking — the only company to submit a valid proposal in the bidding process' second and final round — should be upheld, the board decided.

The proposed contract would replace Nashville's coin-based on-street parking meters with digital meters compatible with smart phone apps and credit cards. Negotiations are ongoing and the contract with LAZ has not been finalized.

More behind The Tennessean paywall here:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson/2022/08/15/nashville-can-move-forward-smart-parking-contract-laz-parking/10329104002/

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, BNAfan said:

Alternatively, remove the parking completely (other than emergency/essential spots) and use space for public transit.  If its not making money and enforcement is expensive, then use for dedicated public transit.   I know folks will have a 1,000 reasons why not, but it is fun to think about.  

Exactly, use it for wider sidewalks, scooter parking, drop off/pick up, sidewalk seating, etc, etc, etc!

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, BNAfan said:

Alternatively, remove the parking completely (other than emergency/essential spots) and use space for public transit.  If its not making money and enforcement is expensive, then use for dedicated public transit.   I know folks will have a 1,000 reasons why not, but it is fun to think about.  

You'll get no arguments from me! 

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, markhollin said:

Negotiations with a Georgia-based parking company to overhaul Nashville's antiquated parking meter system will move forward despite protests from another prospective bidder.

Metro's Procurement Appeals Board unanimously determined Monday that Metro's purchasing agent properly followed rules for soliciting bids for outside contracts. The selection of LAZ Parking — the only company to submit a valid proposal in the bidding process' second and final round — should be upheld, the board decided.

The proposed contract would replace Nashville's coin-based on-street parking meters with digital meters compatible with smart phone apps and credit cards. Negotiations are ongoing and the contract with LAZ has not been finalized.

More behind The Tennessean paywall here:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson/2022/08/15/nashville-can-move-forward-smart-parking-contract-laz-parking/10329104002/

Not knowing the complete ins and outs of the deal (don't have access to the Tennessean), I would expect a lawsuit to be filed against Metro. Seemed phishy how they kicked a bid out for refusing a payment and then accepted a bid that didn't include that fee. Unless it was a bureaucratic/procedural thing in how the bidder rejected the payment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My understanding… from how everything I’ve seen… is that it was a two round bid and LAZ was the only company who actually submitted the second round on time?
 

I mean it does seems suspicious that LAZ was seemingly the preferred vendor and also happened to be the only one who “followed the rules” of the bid… but if true then makes sense they won haha 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They have passed some legislation like this before and never enforced it. I will believe it when I see it. Let's see how long it last until some developer balks and hands someone a sob story and a few dollars and they ignore the law. It's probably only a 50 dollar fine a day and they may not even care. That is like a quarter to these developers. Now if they pull their building permit that will be something different.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, markhollin said:

WeGo North Nashville Transit Center has released new renderings.  Work should be starting this fall.

The transit center would bolster several key WeGo routes while also offering places for scooters, bike-sharing and ride-sharing services — as well as WiFi, public restrooms and plaza space.

Once the center opens in the first half of 2024, residents of North Nashville will be able to access more than twice as many jobs within a 45-minute commute than they can under existing bus service, WeGo said in a federal grant application. Seven routes will connect at the North Nashville center, more than any other place in WeGo's network except for its main WeGo Central facility.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2022/08/25/wego-north-nashville-transit-center.html

WeGo North Nashville Transit Hub, Aug 25, 2022, render 1.png

WeGo North Nashville Transit Hub, Aug 25, 2022, render 2.png

WeGo North Nashville Transit Hub, Aug 25, 2022, render 3.png

WeGo North Nashville Transit Hub, Aug 25, 2022, render 4.png

Why does this take more than a year to build? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/25/2022 at 8:14 AM, markhollin said:

One of the first few things that has changed in Madison for the positive in the last decade but it doesn't really do anything.  That is not a thoroughfare that leads anywhere and doesn't alleviate any traffic, not that that was the intention.  It will be nice for the owners of the new music venue, a feather in the cap for CM NVR and helpful for the people that go to the farmers market once a week but in the end it's mostly useless except for being aesthetically pleasing.

I challenge anyone to go visit Gallatin Pk between Due West Ave and Old Hickory/StRt45 on a weekday rush hour or during a Saturday afternoon.  If you think Gallatin Pk in East Nashville is ever bad, you ain't seen nothin yet.  And there are no bail out routes like in East Nashville:  Riverside, Ellington, Dickerson.  It's Gallatin or Saunders in Madison (I'm not counting Gibson Dr because at some point they installed speed bumps every 10 yards).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/27/2022 at 4:44 PM, rookzie said:

I realize the solicited response to this seems long overlooked.  But it has required some background explication of opinion.

Along with New Jersey Transit (NJT), Chicago’s Metra (the “ME” line only), the South Shore (NICTD) of Northern Indiana, NYC MTA’s Long Island (3rd rail) and Metro North (3rd-rail and overhead catenary), and Septa (SE Pa.) are all public agencies which a half century ago inherited their electrified operations as legacy infrastructure from formerly privately owned lines.  Some of these agencies' branch lines either have been discontinued (in part or entirely) or have become reinstated as electrified service, as with Septa’s recent partial restoration of the West Chester line by extending the Media/Elwyn Line to Wawa, Pa. ─ now referred to as the Media/Wawa Line.  This happened officially last Sunday (8-21).  It’s just a mere 3 miles, which might not seem significant, but it’s a positive step in fully restoring service to the remaining portion to West Chester, which lost service from Philly in 1986.

On the other hand, Denver’s RTD commuter-rail employs an entirely new infrastructure (less than 10 years old) of four lines that use EMUs that are entirely FRA-compliant (similar to Philadelphia Septa’s newer EMUs).  All RTD’s commuter-rail lines (not its light rail lines) utilize segments of pre-existing railroad lines along with new offsets and extensions peculiar to each route.  Denver decided from the start to use electric instead of diesel propulsion over speed and air pollution concerns.  In the Bay Area, Caltrain (or the "Peninsular Commute", as it used to be called in the days of the Southern Pacific RR ownership) has successfully demonstrated the case for its ongoing upgrade to electrify some 50 miles of its RoW between SF and San Jose.  The initiative in part is to improve service times via faster acceleration and shorter headways, but it also serves as strides to additional goals ─ for compliance with Cal’s strict emissions regulations of reducing air pollution and noise within a highly densified region, and facilitating the building of a future railway tunnel from the current 4th and King St station into downtown San Francisco's new Transbay Transit Center, since diesel trains cannot serve underground stations.

WeGo Star commuter-rail remains a far cry from justified electrification of at this point.  Unlike with most other agencies, WeGo just doesn’t have the ridership density to justify electrification for either EMUs or locomotive-hauled push-pulls.  Granted, much of issue has stemmed from a lack of major investment beyond the initial opening in 2008 and having to deal with constraints of the existing single route system ─ one of which is the narrow RoW clearance at the Omohundro water treatment plant.  Scalable frequency can be increased to an extent with strategically located passing sidings, but double-tracking is the only way to eliminate complexity in train dispatching for concurrent bi-directional operation in achieving peak frequency.  Also, the fact that the Riverfront station never effectively can serve additional lines an expanded network means that it basically will remain isolated from an expanded network that would include lines with potentially much denser ridership.  The same would apply to the proposed Northwest Corridor, if its eastern terminus would be separate from a centrally shared terminal with all other routes of long-range proposals.

Unless and until a regional rail network can be built out to serve more than a single corridor with those corridors sharing a single meeting point, it will remain impractical in this day and age, to electrify the single existing corridor, even with expanding that corridor to connect with the airport.  The existing corridor would be considerably more in demand, if it’s terminal could be shared with other corridors.  I mentioned a number of years ago that a connection could be built to reroute the Eastern corridor to a centralized shared terminal location by expanding on the “Southern Junction” that begins north of Hermitage Ave. at the NES South Substation and connecting at grade with the CSX in the Cameron-Trimble area.   All major expandability of the Star network would be contingent on a huge infusion of capital and dangling carrots for CSX, and this has been said an infinite number of times during the recent 2 calendar decades.  Piecemealing the single existing corridor without ongoing action for build-out of other long-ago proposed corridors basically means that the potential of the existing single corridor never can be realized.  Collectively, the individual separate corridors would tend to organically induce ridership among themselves by transfer connectivity.  Sustainable funding only can be justified with establishing of additional routes IMO.

As a commuter-rail hub, Nashville is no "Chicago", which currently has 4 separate downtown terminals to handle its commuter-rail operations.  Chicago has a post-pandemic commuter-rail congestion issue, a redux of the more recent pre-pandemic years, and without those separate terminals, Chicago never could have achieved even close to the capacity level it currently has.  As far as the Riverfront Station for the WeGo Star is concerned, it may never become economically or logistically feasible to relocate the Eastern corridor terminal to a central location.  It's not an absolute must for attaining ever-increasing levels of service and ridership.  But expanding the network to include other corridors is a necessity ─ and an urgent one ─ with or or without a single commonly shared terminal.  I do think that improvements other than electrification are doable and even needed for the Star's single line, including the suggestion to extend it to where Sparta Pk meets I-40.  Even that would require some improvement to the interchange, to better accommodate a Kiss-and-Ride or Park-and-Ride facility.  That also means fulfilling the collateral need for better security and surveillance efforts by WeGo.

Thanks for the input! Not overlooked, figured there would be a detailed response here.

While I agree that the current single rail line and ridership is not approaching the traditional justification threshold for electrification, I still think it is a direction that WeGo should go. By doing it on the WeGo Star now, it could setup any future project down the line to follow that precedent as a basic requirement for any train system - specifically regional rail.

Having experienced a "broken" commuter rail system between Boston's North and South Station (and the ongoing battle to get the North-South Rail Link built), I completely understand and agree that Riverfront Station is not the long term solution. I would think part of the next steps in the East Bank Vision could be to actually create underground ROW that would allow for a future tunnel for regional rail connections to be made at the East Bank Mobility Hub. Base on the topography of the city, I believe the East Bank makes the most sense for a subterranean meeting point. Then future lighter, mass transit can spur off from there. While it is not very central to the city with regards to the hospitals/universities, I think that is where that lighter mass transit (light/bus/third rail) will have to come into play. 

The big reason I made this recommendation is because I am having a very hard time seeing a singular, large plan coming into the city and making everyone's dreams come true. I think the "best path forwards" is to improve the lone corridor we have now, going in the direction that many homeowners are looking towards for affordable housing, with some form of planning efforts for future growth. Prove that the commuter rail actually works with an actual schedule of trains - which is exactly NOT what we have - and make the case that the "build it and they will come" model will work. It's incremental, but it is better than nothing.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.