Inner Loop - CBD, Downtown, East Bank, Germantown, Gulch, Rutledge

[fxvol]

4 hours ago, henburg said:

It seems that there will be an opportunity for many interesting repurposing projects in the future-

 

https://www.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15421594/parking-garages-driverless-cars-gensler

So the car is going to fade out. Tell me, what is going to replace the car? What machine, or form of transportation, will provide us with the many benefits that cars currently provide?

[smeagolsfree]

Im with you. We keep hearing this but people still are buying cars and folks are still voting transit down or local government cant afford to implement and or upkeep the transit.

The elimination of the car is a pipe dream not to be achieved in any of our lifetimes.

[satalac]

10 hours ago, Leif said:

I am going to be fascinated to see what is done with garage space in 20-30 years as car ownership fades out.

20-30 years is still going to be full of cars. Less space may be required due to automation (you can already summon a Tesla), but I don't see cars being phased out for a generation or two. 

[BnaBreaker]

The automobile as a concept is not the problem.  As long as we can eventually learn how to cut fossil fuels out of the equation for good, and learn that cars should be part of a larger transportation strategy rather than THE strategy, and learn that designing our cities around making driving easier rather than around functionality or efficiency is not a good idea, then the car very much has a solid and cemented place in our future.  I think it's the fetishization of the automobile that has gotten us into trouble.  It should be seen as a tool, but instead it is seen by many as a 'way of life' or a 'symbol of freedom.'  

Edited November 22, 2018 by BnaBreaker

[Neigeville2]

10 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

The automobile as a concept is not the problem.  As long as we can eventually learn how to cut fossil fuels out of the equation for good, and learn that cars should be part of a larger transportation strategy rather than THE strategy, and learn that designing our cities around making driving easier rather than around functionality or efficiency is not a good idea, then the car very much has a solid and cemented place in our future.  I think it's the fetishization of the automobile that has gotten us into trouble.  It should be seen as a tool, but instead it is seen by many as a 'way of life' or a 'symbol of freedom.'  

I blame the GI Generation.  Glad they beat the Nazis, but there was an attitude post WWII that the old world was swept away, you can see it in the architecture which is totally divorced from all prior tradition, and they bought into the idea that cars and planes were the only forms of transport that we needed.  There were crazy proposals to knock down Paris and replace it with high rises and expressways, fill in the canals in Amsterdam with concrete so cars could drive on them, etc. except we actually did it, subsidizing sprawl and knocking down old neighborhoods. 

They thought passenger rail was dead and freight rail was a dying technology so they just gave the tracks to the freight companies.  Now train technology has advanced so far that a huge and growing percentage of freight is carried on miles-long trains, and if we had kept the tracks, we could be riding here to Memphis in under an hour.  (Italians are commuting to jobs in Milan from as far as Rome).  Automobiles have reached their limit with three-hour commutes and are becoming a burdensome legacy.   Dumb choices and one that increased personal debt massively as well.  Good work on those Nazis, though.

The answer isn't to get rid of cars and put all our eggs in a different basket, of course.  But some balance and variety of choices would be nice.

[titanhog]

^^Let's also not forget that America is WAY different than Europe and many other places on Earth in that we are more spread out (other than places in the northeast).  We were also one of the first nations that allowed people (other than lords and rich people) to own land as individuals...so suddenly, people didn't just live in villages,  but spread out in all directions into the countryside.  That "freedom" of land ownership and traveling anywhere you want at anytime has kinda been bred into our conscience from the beginning.  Other than recently, the past few generations couldn't wait to wait grow up and turn 16 so we could drive and then own a car.  

[Neigeville2]

Our population continues to become more urban and our cities aren't really that far apart within their regions (People on this board like to talk about how 50% of the US population is within 600 miles of Nashville), we just have a big empty space in the plains and mountains (although really, trains built the West back in the day).  It would take a lot of improvement to make train travel suitable between the coasts, other than for recreation, but Amtrak currently has five profitable lines and three of them are in California, so it's not just the northeast. 

Per Wikipedia, high speed rail beats air travel, (including getting to and from the airport and going thru security) on trips under 430 miles, which would get us to Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Atlanta, St Louis, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Columbus OH and probably more I'm not thinking of, and it is very competitive for places it can reach in under 4 1/2 hours, which would get you from here to  Chicago, New Orleans, Cleveland and other places.   It beats car travel anywhere.   The cities in the Great Lakes area aren't very far apart either, Milwaukee-Chicago-Gary-Detroit-Erie-Toledo-Buffalo.  

Of course the biggest problem is the difficulty of getting infrastructure funding, eminent domain, years long environmental review processes and fighting off brain-eating NIMBY hordes, and the political influence of the Airlines (Amtrak ate their lunch with the Acela causing Southwest to cancel their service between DC and NYC and they are not fans) not to mention getting each state on board during these fractious times, but as a practical rather than a political matter, it's completely feasible.

[titanhog]

^^Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to get ROW if we get high-speed rail right along the interstate in most places.  I realize that's not feasible for 100% of interstate paths...but at least would be a starting place.

[henburg]

On 11/21/2018 at 8:34 PM, fxvol said:

So the car is going to fade out. Tell me, what is going to replace the car? What machine, or form of transportation, will provide us with the many benefits that cars currently provide?

I don't think the car will ever be completely phased out of American culture, or pretty much any other culture for that matter. That said, as Nashville continues to become more dense, there will be an opportunity for those to live here without an automobile and I think that there will be many who embrace that lifestyle. Personally, I don't enjoy owning a car all that much. It breaks all of the time, gas is expensive, and it's bad for the environment. If it were possible for me to live in Nashville without a car, I'd happily welcome it. 

[samsonh]

10 minutes ago, henburg said:

I don't think the car will ever be completely phased out of American culture, or pretty much any other culture for that matter. That said, as Nashville continues to become more dense, there will be an opportunity for those to live here without an automobile and I think that there will be many who embrace that lifestyle. Personally, I don't enjoy owning a car all that much. It breaks all of the time, gas is expensive, and it's bad for the environment. If it were possible for me to live in Nashville without a car, I'd happily welcome it. 

Agreed. Yeah its not that the car is phased out. It just may be that you do not own one and instead have a subscription service. Think about how often your car is sitting in doing nothing. 

[Hey_Hey]

Full Autonomy is still a ways out (although it is progressing rapidly), but that's only one piece of the puzzle.  Once legit autonomy gets here then I do think individual car ownership will phase out because of the economics of car ownership. 

In the meantime, however, ride sharing companies have taken a bite out of a parking revenues.  This year several large airports have seen their revenues fall as ride sharing becomes more and more common. I think the same thing is happening in downtowns and entertainment districts throughout the country as well.  It is probably tough to pick up any changes in Nashville since downtown Nashville is growing so rapidly, but I would be willing to bet that if we could somehow normalize the number of needed parking spaces to leaseable square feet then we would see a falling number. In addition to ride sharing we now have scooter rentals that are becoming quite common as well.  They may seem gimmicky, but I suspect they will have a growing effect on parking and the necessity of cars in the urban core moving forward. 

[e-dub]

2 hours ago, henburg said:

I don't think the car will ever be completely phased out of American culture, or pretty much any other culture for that matter. That said, as Nashville continues to become more dense, there will be an opportunity for those to live here without an automobile and I think that there will be many who embrace that lifestyle. Personally, I don't enjoy owning a car all that much. It breaks all of the time, gas is expensive, and it's bad for the environment. If it were possible for me to live in Nashville without a car, I'd happily welcome it. 

It's funny.  I own the car I've always wanted... and am tired of owning it. Being car-free is almost a fetish at this point.

[Mr_Bond]

2 hours ago, e-dub said:

It's funny.  I own the car I've always wanted... and am tired of owning it. Being car-free is almost a fetish at this point.

Since I live in The Gulch and often drive to appointments with a team member, I have only needed one car in the past three months.  I'm considering the 'rent your car' services, like Turo,  Does anyone know someone who's rented their car like this?

[FromParkAveToTN]

5 hours ago, henburg said:

I don't think the car will ever be completely phased out of American culture, or pretty much any other culture for that matter. That said, as Nashville continues to become more dense, there will be an opportunity for those to live here without an automobile and I think that there will be many who embrace that lifestyle. Personally, I don't enjoy owning a car all that much. It breaks all of the time, gas is expensive, and it's bad for the environment. If it were possible for me to live in Nashville without a car, I'd happily welcome it. 

Amen to that. I HATE driving. Hate it with a passion. Hate hate hate it. I really do hate it. For real,  I hate driving.  Did I mention how much I hate it? Well, I do hate driving. 

[SoundScan]

7 hours ago, Mr_Bond said:

Since I live in The Gulch and often drive to appointments with a team member, I have only needed one car in the past three months.  I'm considering the 'rent your car' services, like Turo,  Does anyone know someone who's rented their car like this?

We recently sold our only car. We use Zipcar when we need to use a car for something--roughly once a month or so. I've tried Turo and Getaround but prefer Zipcar due to proximity, pricing model, and ease of use.

When you do the math accounting for everything (capex/payments, depreciation, parking, insurance, gas, etc.) it's pretty surprising how much car ownership costs. The U.S. average is around $8500 a year.

[MidTenn1]

I love driving. I love it, I love it, I love it. I have driven over a million miles. The only way you are going to take my car keys away is to pry them from my cold dead hands. I love my day-cation drives around town and driving across the Great Plains, the desert, swamps, Sand Hills or even the Plateau to visit Grandbabies. If there is legislation to require non-fossil fuel autos, I will happily abide, but until then...excuse me, I've got to go drive to the store. Later!

[markhollin]

85 Van Buren (2 stories, 8,000 sq. ft. commercial space) update. Topped out.

Looking NW from Adams St., 1/2 block north of Taylor St:

Looking west from Adams St;, 1/2 block south of Van Buren St:

Looking SW from intersection of Adams St. and Van Buren St:

Looking east from Van Buren St., 1/2 block east of 2nd Ave. North:

[BnaBreaker]

6 hours ago, PHofKS said:

I love driving. I love it, I love it, I love it. I have driven over a million miles. The only way you are going to take my car keys away is to pry them from my cold dead hands. I love my day-cation drives around town and driving across the Great Plains, the desert, swamps, Sand Hills or even the Plateau to visit Grandbabies. If there is legislation to require non-fossil fuel autos, I will happily abide, but until then...excuse me, I've got to go drive to the store. Later!

That's totally fair, and I get it completely.  I really do.  I like cars and I like driving too, under certain conditions anyway.  I don't think any transit advocate is talking about forcing people to give up their car keys or their freedom of movement.  If anyone is it's the folks who think automated cars are the silver bullet solution to any and all transportation woes.  I simply think functional options should be available in any healthy, functional, urban city.  Tied to that concept of a healthy, functional, urban city too is the concept of designing cities around functionality for human beings rather than around functionality for cars.  We could all come up with examples of car dependent cities that are growing currently, but vibrant urban neighborhoods where human beings actually like being are usually few and far between in those cities.  For me designing a city around getting a car from downtown to the suburbs outside as fast and easily as possible would be kind of like designing a home around getting you from your bed to the pool outside as fast and easily as possible.  It just doesn't make sense.

Edited November 24, 2018 by BnaBreaker

[donNdonelson2]

I love cars. (I HATE traffic) 

[Neigeville2]

I've driven well over a million miles in my life, unfortunately, and it never fails to amaze me that there are people who don't find driving incredibly boring, tedious and aggravating, but then I know people who like to wash dishes, mow lawns, and all kinds of other boring stupid chores.  To each his own, as long as you're not poisoning my air or wrecking my climate.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Neigeville2

[titanhog]

I don't like driving in the city...but I love driving long distance.  I've actually driven out west (all the way the San Fran) more than once and love seeing the country that way.

[Dale]

2 hours ago, Neigeville2 said:

I've driven well over a million miles in my life, unfortunately, and it never fails to amaze me that there are people who don't find driving incredibly boring, tedious and aggravating, but then I know people who like to wash dishes, mow lawns, and all kinds of other boring stupid chores.  To each his own, as long as you're not poisoning my air or wrecking my climate.

Climate Change is the new Jesus-is-Coming cult. This time, Jesus comes on a bicycle, with a retinue of ACLU lawyers trailing behind.

 

[BnaBreaker]

Ohhh Dale.  

[Guest]

Here is the thing.....the mods and lefties  on the board always at this point tend to point the fingers at Dale for bringing ‘politics’ into the discussion, but multiple posters have referenced ‘climate change’ without any mod comment. Now, I think we are all adults and are capable of having the discussion, but this is normally where the board mods question the intent of .....  ‘insert poster with non-progressive views’ and redirect to the coffee house...

my point is he is just responding to an already political assertion.

[Tennessine]

Dale makes me hungry.

I use this brand of steak seasoning called Dale's whenever I'm about to cook something nice on the grill.

Every time I see his username, I think of a juicy steak.

That's all I got to add here folks. Happy late Thanksgiving!