The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[rookzie]

when I saw this monorail proposal on facebook today, several of my friends enthusiastically shared it, I wanted to pull my hair out.  My understanding is that monorails are that they are very expensive, inefficient, and generally dont work.  that is why disney world only expanded theirs once, to epcott, but not to the other parks, and why one was dismantled in a city, i cant remember which one, in Australia. 

but what it did show me, from my friends posting and other peoples comments is that there is huge support for some type of rail from the boro to nashville.

as stated above though, dumping people downtown doesnt do much good if it is difficult for them to get to their final destination. there must be something running locally downtown as well

 

...and with that, this is the reason that I emphasized yesterday that there really should be a collective effort to plan for moving people through the city, as well as into and away from it...

[nashvylle]

Fu€king ridiculous.

If I wanted to live in Shelbyville, I'd buy a trailer to screw my sister in.

Hey, at least now we don't have to share any of the road budget. Make 'me wider boys! I said WIDER!!

 

I spoke with some amp people today after the meeting.

 

The good news -

 

The Senate DROPPED the proposal to have any BRT on state roads approved by the General Assembly.

 

The bad news -

 

The senate proposed that there cannot be dedicated lanes in the center. The Amp has federal funds specified for the engineering work on the center lane, not the outer lanes. No one knows if we can ask for an amendment to the federal funds to have dedicated lanes on the outer lanes.

 

The house voted for the brt to be approved by the general assembly (I believe), meaning, there are differences between the senate and the house proposals.

 

The next steps - The senate and the house have to find some common ground and present a bill by around Easter. If no new bill is presented, the proposal dies. If a new bill is presented and approved, not good.

However, Governor Haslam could veto a bill that blocks The Amp.

 

What to do - CALL AND EMAIL THE STATE RESPRESENTATIVES. THIS IS AN OVERREACH OF STATE GOVERNMENT AND WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN.

 

GO AMP.

[smeagolsfree]

I know the monorail in Las Vegas cost a ton of money and is often down and not working. This shows how stupid our so called lawmakers are. William, thought it could also be a joke by Ketron. If so, then a lot of us are taken by it. The study if real is a waste of taxpayer money as there are several other cheaper alternatives out there such as LRT, BRT, and Heavy rail.

[smeagolsfree]

Las Vegas monorail cost 654 million for just over four miles. A real bargain.

[volsfanwill]

Las Vegas monorail cost 654 million for just over four miles. A real bargain.

so, about $5 Billion for this proposal?  OR we could have 4 light rail lines AND a downtown tunnel for them!

[UTgrad09]

By gum, the monorail put Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook on the map! 

 

Maybe we can get Jim Tracy on board and make the monorail run from Shelbyville to Springfield, via Capital City!

[TMcKay9]

State Senator Stacy Campfield looks to bring a bill to the Senate floor next week to propose bringing Elon Musks Hyperloop to Tennessee to connect Nashville and Knoxville by this summer.  He says the only thing he's worried about is gays having easier access to Knoxville.  He said he's excited about the possibility of zooming back and forth like a pneumatic bank tube.

 

Edited March 13, 2014 by TMcKay9

[rookzie]

By gum, the monorail put Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook on the map! 

 

Maybe we can get Jim Tracy on board and make the monorail run from Shelbyville to Springfield, via Capital City!

 

We have a Simpson (his name is Mark) working with us, and he's commuted on "them things" quite regularly, he tells me.

 

-=arf-arf=-

[rookzie]

State Senator Stacy Campfield looks to bring a bill to the Senate floor next week to propose bringing Elon Musks Hyperloop to Tennessee to connect Nashville and Knoxville by this summer.  He says the only thing he's worried about is gays having easier access to Knoxville.  He said he's excited about the possibility of zooming back and forth like pneumatic bank tube.

 

As much as Campfield's stands are nearly always antithetical to my own, I cautiously dare to be on his side, for a change, in favoring fixed-guideway transport.  But do believe that it is evident that he's just taken a liking to those bus fumes that he must've been sniffin' while stuck on I-40 somewhere.

 

-=arf-arf=-

[Neigeville2]

As much as Campfield's stands are nearly always antithetical to my own, I cautiously dare to be on his side, for a change, in favoring fixed-guideway transport.  But do believe that it is evident that he's just taken a liking to those bus fumes that he must've been sniffin' while stuck on I-40 somewhere.

 

-=arf-arf=-

I favor fixed-guideway transport where there is room to actually sit up or stand up and you're not confined in a tiny canister.  I was interested in this kind of transport when I first heard of it 30 years ago, but the details are far less appealing. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19848/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-add-up/

 

For starters, because the diameter of the tube is so limited, the capacity of such a system is pretty small.  Apparently most of the savings over high speed rail in Musk's California proposal comes from the fact that instead of buying ROW to downtown, his system would take you from some unspecified location in the East Bay and dump you somewhere in the Northeast suburbs of LA, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.  

 

Musk's proposal won't actually get riders to the downtowns of Los Angeles or San Francisco. It can only carry around 10% of the capacity of the California High-Speed Rail. Additionally, it will bypass other population centers, like Bakersfield, Fresno, and San Jose.

 

 

This proposal is just some guy who made a fortune in cars and now has an inflated sense of self-importance, sticking his nose into a debate he either doesn't understand or is disingenuously trying to derail.  Sound familiar? 

Edited March 13, 2014 by Neigeville2

[TMcKay9]

 

This proposal is just some guy who made a fortune in cars and now has an inflated sense of self-importance, sticking his nose into a debate he either doesn't understand or is disingenuously trying to derail.  Sound familiar? 

 

Probably one of the silliest comments I've ever read on here.  Elon Musk is one of the biggest visionaries of our generation.  Are you talking about the guy who sold paypal to ebay for 1.5 billion or the guy who created SpaceX, the first privately funded rocket to reach orbit and has a contract with NASA to resupply the international space station and launches satellites into orbit for the military or the guy who founded SolarCity, the most revolutionary solar energy company in the United States or the guy who founded an electric car company that created technology in 2 years that General Motor engineers said was at least 30 years away?  That guy.  If he has an inflated sense of self-importance I'd say he earned it.

[Neigeville2]

Probably one of the silliest comments I've ever read on here.  Elon Musk is one of the biggest visionaries of our generation.  Are you talking about the guy who sold paypal to ebay for 1.5 billion or the guy who created SpaceX, the first privately funded rocket to reach orbit and has a contract with NASA to resupply the international space station and launches satellites into orbit for the military or the guy who founded SolarCity, the most revolutionary solar energy company in the United States or the guy who founded an electric car company that created technology in 2 years that General Motor engineers said was at least 30 years away?  That guy.  If he has an inflated sense of self-importance I'd say he earned it.

 

No, I'm talking about the guy who boasted he could build a much better high speed transport between SF & LA than people who've actually studied the problem, and then came out with a laughable proposal for a dangerous and uncomfortable barf comet with dubious safety analysis and downright dishonest cost projections.  I don't care if he's building a rocket to Mars, his rocket to San Francisco sucks.  

[bwithers1]

  He says the only thing he's worried about is gays having easier access to Knoxville.  

 

 

Yeah, because Knoxville is the new ultimate LGBT travel destination.  Look out Wilton Manors!

 

Seriously, Knoxville's Pride books better acts and is more fun than Nashville's.  But I'm not moving there any time soon.

[CenterHill]

Leaving downtown tonight on 8th, took a left turn on Fogg St at the Vorhees building and noticed the mayor is replacing sidewalks. (Good - easier to walk to Tenn BrewWorks). In building the sidewalk, they had to pull up the railroad spur that ran along Fogg and at one time serviced Vorhees. I saw the ancient crumpled rails laying there on the side of the road. We lament that Nashville long ago ripped up our rail and trolley lines that traversed the city core, and we wish we had them back, but it's worth noting that we're continuing to do it. Long live the car.

Edited March 15, 2014 by CenterHill

[MidTenn1]

Leaving downtown tonight on 8th, took a left turn on Fogg St at the Vorhees building and noticed the mayor is replacing sidewalks. (Good - easier to walk to Tenn BrewWorks). In building the sidewalk, they had to pull up the railroad spur that ran along Fogg and at one time serviced Vorhees. I saw the ancient crumpled rails laying there on the side of the road. We lament that Nashville long ago ripped up our rail and trolley lines that traversed the city core, and we wish we had them back, but it's worth noting that we're continuing to do it. Long live the car.

 

We needed the steel in World War 2. Rubber tire buses were much more economical at the time. Once the war was over, the rail infrastructure had been reduced to such a low 'critical mass' it was not feasible to attempt to maintain and operate.

 

I remember unused trolley lines all over Nashville when I was young. Never got to ride on one, though.

[fieldmarshaldj]

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=36.150842,-86.777039&spn=0.000004,0.002642&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=36.150838,-86.778623&panoid=CgmeO6eAGAy0VnWF-TI0qA&cbp=12,225.04,,0,7.6

^A cursory glance at those tracks would tend to reveal that not having been maintained for years and filled in around them with concrete. Even if there was desire for them to be reused for some rail capacity, they probably weren't viable.

Edited March 15, 2014 by fieldmarshaldj

[rookzie]

Leaving downtown tonight on 8th, took a left turn on Fogg St at the Vorhees building and noticed the mayor is replacing sidewalks. (Good - easier to walk to Tenn BrewWorks). In building the sidewalk, they had to pull up the railroad spur that ran along Fogg and at one time serviced Vorhees. I saw the ancient crumpled rails laying there on the side of the road. We lament that Nashville long ago ripped up our rail and trolley lines that traversed the city core, and we wish we had them back, but it's worth noting that we're continuing to do it. Long live the car.

 

 

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=36.150842,-86.777039&spn=0.000004,0.002642&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=36.150838,-86.778623&panoid=CgmeO6eAGAy0VnWF-TI0qA&cbp=12,225.04,,0,7.6

^A cursory glance at those tracks would tend to reveal that not having been maintained for years and filled in around them with concrete. Even if there was desire for them to be reused for some rail capacity, they probably weren't viable.

 

The vast majority of rail spurs that most of us, who remain alive and have witnessed sometime or another, were constructed as urban commercial and industrial infrastructure, starting in the late 1880s. You still see a lot of this evidence in the older, industrial Midwest, the Atlantic Seaboard, and the Northeast, many of these old ornate structures remaining extant, frequently being repurposed as multi-dwellings, mixed-use property, or even as all commercial.  Unless you were around with those of us living back when I was a child (and even as a teenager), you might not realize that many of these older urban buildings, typically with 3 or 4 stories, and which appear to be within 1 or 2 blocks from a main-line railroad ROW, actually at one time or another had tracks running alongside, if not into the buildings themselves.

 

Use of this old trackage peaked during the 1920s, and steadily declined as the Great Depression hit, somewhat leveling off during early WWII.  The Post-war period began the most noticeable drop in the use of these spurs, the mass removal of which was brought on with the hollow often false promise of urban renewal.  A lot of these spurs are nothing more than vestiges of the distant past, which could be found all over each of the main sector designations of Nashville (No,So,Ea,We).   What you have seen is only a recent casualty of has been done across the nation.  I cannot give an accurate educated guess, but since 1950, Nashville has probably lost over 500 miles of total trackage – some of it as parallel sidings, some as branch lines, some as industrial team trunks, and the remainder as short spurs to wayside structures, as that to the Voorhees Building.  As was typical of this layout practice, the Voorhees spur was a stub track, onto which a locomotive would "shove" (move by coupling to from the rear) freight cars along the track, up to an all steel car "stop" or a bulky (and crumbling) concrete and steel spring-loaded bumper affixed to the remote end of the track.

 

All of the mainline trackage you see leading from town is single-track converted from double-track.  This infrastructure “downgrade” was done mostly during the 1960s, when railroads invested in Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) to remotely govern the movement of trains.  Converting one of the double tracks to passing sidings and eliminating the rest saved the lines millions in annual costs.  Unused spurs such as that which led to Bill Voorhees were disabled by “spiking” (permanently “pegging” or disabling the connecting switch to prevent branch access) or by partial switch removal.

 

You just have to bear in mind that transportation business models have totally changed during the past 60-something years.  The Ma-’n'-Pa industries, which at one time could be economically served by these 500-ft-long (or shorter) spurs, have long disappeared, the buildings themselves frequently remaining as “mausoleum” monuments of activity, only to those of us who can recall what they used to be.  Railroads sell off this industrial real estate to shed the fat (or more appropriately, “gangrene”) of non-used property, particularly when developers and the city agencies have some other plans in mind.  As mentioned in an earlier post, the remaining seven Class-1 railroads of the US make their highest margin of profit on mineral-, crop-, or petroleum freight, and especially double-stack container freight, all of which can be bulk transloaded at distant intermodal cargo seaports (e.g. Newport News, Jacksonville) or at newer “landports” (e.g. the Port of Richmond [Va.]).

 

As painful as the sight of the removal of the Voorhees spur might be as sticking pins in the Voo-doo doll of nostalgia, there really no longer remains any practical purpose for maintaining these things, and the only reason that they were allowed to remain even this long is that they were partially cemented or asphalted over as a temporary stay of execution.  The railroads don’t have to foot the bill; it’s the new owners who have to do that.  They really could not be "saved" per se for any kind of LRT, at least these short stubs couldn't.  You've already seen what's been happening to the spurs along 11^th Ave Industrial, and unless you were driving along that stretch in Nashville before 1995, then you missed even the removal of so many other cross tracks along there.

 

One huge opportunity for light-rail was missed during the 1990s and early 2000s, as most of the Gulch property has been sold off to development.  It appears that even the Clement Landport is basically isolated to total uselessness, since even any plan to relocate it or to bridge it to the west side of the remaining CSX property has become no longer feasible, due to the infill which has all but totally killed the availability of a level-graded tract, as a natural for a multi-track terminal for combined Intercity, regional and local rail and bus.  Notwithstanding the need for the eventual removal of these much deteriorated rail spurs and stubs (you’d better take photos quickly), there’s not much else remaining of a choice to provide what could have been a multi-modal transit facility, potentially constituent to what some of you out there had conceived in drawings before I joined this topic.

 

-=ricky-roox=-

Edited March 18, 2014 by rookzie

[FrankNash]

Lt. Ron Ramsey announced that he is talking to speaker Beth Harwell about calling the General Assembly back for a one-day session later this year. The reason: to override any vetoes that the governor may issue after adjournment, which is expected in about a month. Haslam has not announced any plans to veto anything but if he decides to, Ramsey and other legislators will be ready, with fingers on the button. So what's the reason for calling a special session to override the governor? To make sure the poor are feed? NO. So the elderly have needed health care? NO. Maybe so our youth get a better education? Nahhh. It's an override to preserve a bill that would take away local authority to prohibit guns in city parks where children play and to overcome a veto of legislation that would block Metro authority to implement bus rapid transit (AMP). What is wrong with these people are they jealous of Nashville's success or are they protecting their rich friends? Or both?

[grilled_cheese]

Lt. Ron Ramsey announced that he is talking to speaker Beth Harwell about calling the General Assembly back for a one-day session later this year. The reason: to override any vetoes that the governor may issue after adjournment, which is expected in about a month. Haslam has not announced any plans to veto anything but if he decides to, Ramsey and other legislators will be ready, with fingers on the button. So what's the reason for calling a special session to override the governor? To make sure the poor are feed? NO. So the elderly have needed health care? NO. Maybe so our youth get a better education? Nahhh. It's an override to preserve a bill that would take away local authority to prohibit guns in city parks where children play and to overcome a veto of legislation that would block Metro authority to implement bus rapid transit (AMP). What is wrong with these people are they jealous of Nashville's success or are they protecting their rich friends? Or both?

 

How many state roads run through his district?  Lets defund them.

[rookzie]

How many state roads run through his district?  Lets defund them.

 

Not much in Blountville (pronounced "Blunt-v'l", for those who haven't heard of it); you pass next to it on the way to Virginia, via I-81, and I recall only state roads, not US Federal (such as US 58, or 11E or 11W [the ol' "suicide strip" to Bristol]), pass through, other than I-81 itself.

 

Anyway, you do realize that Ron Ramsey is the patriarch "ring leader", who will go at lengths to push the State Senate over the humps of veto.  He also has clout by his having served on the Gen Ass'y for 6 years, before serving in the Senate since 1996.  This accounts for much of his current "monolithic" constituency, and since the Gen Ass'y elected him as Lt.Gov. in 2007, he appears to have the grip of "military tank treads" in his quest to steam-roll any Republican initiative, even against a fellow " 'Publikan", it seems.  Ramsey has become the "darling" of East State, which of course is Appalachian. [this reference in no way is intended to disparage or label Appalachia as a culture]

 

We're in for some interesting history-book writing precedents, most likely, before this state's urban corridors become even worse "constipated" with congestion than they are.

 

-=rr=-

Edited March 25, 2014 by rookzie

[grilled_cheese]

Not much in Blountville (pronounced "Blunt-v'l", for those who haven't heard of it); you pass next to it on the way to Virginia, via I-81, and I recall only state roads, not US Federal (such as US 58, or 11E or 11W [the ol' "suicide strip" to Bristol]), pass through, other than I-81 itself.

 

Anyway, you do realize that Ron Ramsey is the patriarch "ring leader", who will go at lengths to push the State Senate over the humps of veto.  He also has clout by his having served on the Gen Ass'y for 6 years, before serving in the Senate since 1996.  This accounts for much of his current "monolithic" constituency, and since the Gen Ass'y elected him as Lt.Gov. in 2007, he appears to have the grip of "military tank treads" in his quest to steam-roll any Republican initiative, even against a fellow " 'Publikan", it seems.  Ramsey has become the "darling" of East State, which of course is Appalachian. [this reference in no way is intended to disparage or label Appalachia as a culture]

 

We're in for some interesting history-book writing precedents, most likely, before this state's urban corridors become even worse "constipated" with congestion than they are.

 

-=rr=-

 

The older I get, the madder I get.  Is this the trend?

 

Is there no one who will step up and challenge him?

[smeagolsfree]

Hicks from the sticks. I are one. From that County. It is very very conservative there. You will probably never have a democrat win dog catcher there.

So conservative they were pro union during the Civil War. My family south of the Virginia border fought for the North and the family North fought for the South.

I cringed when I heard his comment about the sausage biscuits and Limos on West End. The people will keep re electing a representative till they die due to loyalty to the party.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Hicks from the sticks. I are one. From that County. It is very very conservative there. You will probably never have a democrat win dog catcher there.

Sounds like heaven.

[Guest]

well I am just glad I live in good ole enlightened Davidson county where they never vote party lines..... ha

[fieldmarshaldj]

^Yeah, I'll say (126 years of one party controlling the Mayor's office and counting).