Which will Nashville Get

[it's just dave]

Welcome noise, we're glad you joined too. Look forward to those times when you stop in.

[monsoon]

Here is another example of a BRT system proposed for Oregon. They can be as good as Light Rail if implemented properly.

[Rural King]

LRT would make so much sence in certain areas of Nashville. I think this city needs to begin having a plan for rail lines down heavy traffic areas...West End, Hillsboro, etc. I live in Bellevue, and constantly dream about the rail line in Belle Meade used as LRT. They could have a plan in place, and take action once there is a possability of funding. That's my two cents.

Also, I'm from Benton, KY, does that allow me to join in on the fun?

Welcome to the forum!!! Great to have a new forumer, and one with a tie my general region WTN/WKY.

You're from Benton, KY (Marshall Co.) originally eh? Well since the Purchase Region is almost by default part of Tennessee I think you're okay. I know Benton and Marshall County very well (heck all of the Purchase), its a very nice area.

[Nashnoize]

Hey Rural, I thought you were the one from my old stomping grounds. As I've gotten older I realize that the area is very beautiful. As a kid, the rural aspect drove me insane. Especially coming from urban St. Louis to rural KY. We may have lots to discuss about that area, but that would send this thread way off topic. So is that BRT in Portland on a rail, if so would that make it a true BRT or half BRT/LRT? Can't really tell from the picture if there are wheels or rails.

[monsoon]

It is on regular highway tires. BRT - Bus Rapid Transit, which is a bus on dedicated routes (no cars).

[jdavidf]

I was born in Glasgow. Does that count?

What a very small world -- my partner, Michael, was born and raised in Glasgow.. maybe you two are cousins!

[southsideJ]

This is old, but interesting--an MTA study on BRT vs. LRT

It is strongly in favor of BRT b/c of cost, feasibility, ridership and expected impact on the environment and traffic.

Nashville Urban Core Light Rail Analysis

[Justiceham]

I think they are waisting money on LRT at this point in time, because for the money they are not going to be able to move many people and the people they will move will only be from Nashville east. It would make a lot more since to expand the bus lines to all of the surrounding counties. If you want to take a bus bus from Franklin, Gallatin, Pleasant View or other points just outside Nashville, you could'nt. At least you have the option in Rutherford county to ride the bus in, but I do not know what the schedule is like from there. Bus lines can be added today where as the infrastructure for the LRT can take years to install.

Speaking of buses, does anyone know what ever happened to the Greyhound terminal at the corner of Maney Avenue and Broad Street in south Murfreesboro?

[GaTechGuy]

Speaking of buses, does anyone know what ever happened to the Greyhound terminal at the corner of Maney Avenue and Broad Street in south Murfreesboro?

I dunno what exactly happened to it but I know that the greyhound buses now stop at the old rundown gas station at the last Murfreesboro exit coming from nashville (81 I think). I had to ride a Greyhound bus once back home from college down here in Atlanta. Talk about no fun!

[Marchingforever]

Do any of us use or have any of us ever used MTA? I am not going to lie, I do not ride the MTA anymore. Growing up in east Nashville, I use to ride it all of the time before I had a car. When I got a car, MTA was no longer good enough for me. LOL Will we really be able to part with the convenience that our cars offer? Will a LRT or BRT only be used because it is the "new toy" and then be forgotten when the newness wears off? I am sorry but I love driving my car!

[franktown]

I live in Franklin, but when I lived in Bellvue I never used the MTA. I don't know anyone who likes busses. However, when I lived in Toronto, we had the subway and we took it everywhere. Sadly, Nashville is built on Limestone, so we can never have a subway. I do think that busses will continue to fail because of the stigma that many attach to it that 'Only the poor, homeless peole ride the MTA busses."

[smeagolsfree]

Do any of us use or have any of us ever used MTA? I am not going to lie, I do not ride the MTA anymore. Growing up in east Nashville, I use to ride it all of the time before I had a car. When I got a car, MTA was no longer good enough for me. LOL Will we really be able to part with the convenience that our cars offer? Will a LRT or BRT only be used because it is the "new toy" and then be forgotten when the newness wears off? I am sorry but I love driving my car!

I have at times when I leave a vehicle somewhere off Nolensville rd to be worked on. I will have to say the wait can be close to 30 minutes to wait on a bus to take me downtown. Thats been my only experience on any of the routes. It was not that bad but I am sure the majority of people riding did not own cars and this was their only alternative.

A lot of school kids ride the bus to the different magnet schools around town too. They have to get there on their own since they do not assign bus routes for those schools

[BrandonTO416]

I think Bus Rapid Transit using dedicated right of way lanes or independent streets with enhanced LRT-like cars is the solution to Nashville's inner city transit needs.

LRT is too cost prohibitive and does not operate like a subway. BRT would be a quick, easy to implement alternative and not take away from MTA's budget for its already ailing bus system. They need to keep the bus system going and grow it, not shrink it for the sake of a single LRT line.

Too many smaller cities have made the mistake of investing into LRT when its a cheap bus substitute.

In my opinion either have heavy rail via commuter and subways with bus or have just buses.

Light Rail is increasingly unattractive because of its tendency to run in the street with other traffic at critical points, the lack of capacity well above what BRT can offer, and its high cost and long construction period.

There is only one city I've been to in North America with a viable, useful, attractive LRT network and that's Toronto. Their population is high enough to support all forms of public transit, and Nashville simply won't be at that level anytime soon.

[monsoon]

.....Light Rail is increasingly unattractive because of its tendency to run in the street with other traffic at critical

I disagree with this statement.

There are many successful LRT systems that don't travel in the ROW. Both BRT and LRT have issues when they have to share the ROW with traffic. Cities will make the mistake of putting LRT into the ROW to cut costs which also cuts the effectiveness of the system. Houston is the most glaring example of this. On the other hand, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Dallas, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Calgary, and Edmonton are all cities that operated very effective and highly used light rail lines.

Charlotte is the first mid-sized Southern city to build a modern light rail line which will open in 2007. There have been literally billions of dollars of new construction announced around the stations of this line and the city is working on selling even more land to very interested developers which will put tens of thousands or residents along this line when it is built out. The jury is still out on how this line will work in a city like Charlotte, but the line is being built in its own ROW which should help greatly in promoting it as a transit/development corridor. If the price of land around the line is any indication, which has skyrocketed in price since the line was approved, it should be very successful. You can see photos of the construction here. They are working on plans to add more lines to this system. This would be the example that I would see Nashville following in the future.

....There is only one city I've been to in North America with a viable, useful, attractive LRT network and that's Toronto.

Toronto has is suffering from declining ridership on its transit system as it continues to suburbanize so it isn't exactly the model that should be emulated. This when ridership is rising on most USA systems including all LRT lines.

[BrandonTO416]

LRT has better capacity than BRT, but not by much. I actually like LRT, but for Nashville I don't think its the right technology. It would cost too much to run and take money away from an MTA bus system that is already minimal as it stands today. After construction costs are over, LRT can actually hurt an overall transit system in a city like Nashville that has low transit ridership and will take years to build into an urban minded population.

Portland has a great LRT system. But Nashville is not Portland. Really I just mentioned Toronto because its LRT network works so well, not because I think Nashville should emulate it.

Toronto has a slightly declining ridership because its a mature city that doesn't need more riders. Its suburbs are seeing an increase these days. There really isn't a comparison here.

Here's why I think BRT would work well in Nashville:

*Its cheaper

*It is practical, and can move people around quickly just as LRT would

*It can be constructed very quickly. All they need to do is reconfigure the street system, dedicate some right of way for BRT lanes and repave, throw up a new streetscape and bus canopies/stops.

Nashville needed an urban circulation transit system some time ago. The Downtown-West End-Green Hills district needs a circulation system as quickly as possible. We don't have time to put up with LRT construction, and we don't need to waste the MTA's operating budget with the huge expense of an LRT system for a city of Nashville's design.

This is entirely my opinion. If we get LRT, the more the merrier. I just think BRT could be up and running in 6 months flat. All they need to do is get federal funding to purchase the vehicles, repave and repaint some streets, upgrade the streetscape and add signage.

LRT will take years AFTER the lengthy approval process, and it takes away the attractiveness of adding heavy rail subway or elevated trains in the distant future.

Look at Atlanta, they have a successful MARTA system and didn't go the LRT route either. It helped them over the years, and its great they have the system today.

Nashville has two choices: spend $500 million on a single LRT system that connects downtown to West End and ends at Green Hills mall. OR spend $500 million and build a BRT connecting downtown, West End, Green Hills; finish the commuter rail system's other lines and enhance the existing service with more trains, and beef up the MTA bus budget and keep it running with better service. Since BRT saves so much money, so many of these funds can be used to create new streetscapes and tear up some of these ugly streets and rebuild them.

You'd be amazed at how much just replacing the sidewalk, building more TOD buildings, and throwing up cool looking lamp posts can do to a city's image.

LRT will take funds away from other areas that are desperately needed. Given Nashville's dire need of better transit today, the lack of funds, and the federal budget that is already gone bust because of Iraq we really don't have many options like we did in years past.

We're more likely to get maximum results from our federal dollars if we lobby for BRT, MTA funding, commuter rail, and streetscape projects. The result will be better for the same amount of money spent.

[MidTenn1]

It seems to me that Nashville

[barakat]

It seems to me that Nashville

[monsoon]

There is no way there will be another heavy rail subway will be built from scratch in the forseeable future in the USA, given the very limited amount of federal funding and the very high cost of building such a line, especially a subway line. Atlanta was lucky in that it got a system in the late 70s and early 80s when massive amounts of federal money was made available during that period for transit, which made possible the construction of Atlanta's Marta, DC's Metro (which is one of the most successful systems in NA) and San Francisco's BART. If you look closely at these systems, you will see a lot of similarities in the technology. If these cities were to try and build those systems today, it would be almost impossible and they instead would be looking at light rail solutions.

Most cities in North America are going to be limited to either LRT or Commuter Rail and/or some combination of the two to serve their populations. The feds are making available about $1.5B/year for fixed guideway transit for about $45B in requests.

BRT is another option, but it is a very unpopular one and studies suggest that it fails to reach the ridership potential of LRT and the cost of building BRT isn't that much different from LRT if the decision is made to put it in its own ROW. The current push to build BRT in the USA is based on a field trip to Curitiba, Brazil in the late 90s where they have a home grown BRT solution they claim operates in the black and was built for low amounts of money. I've seen a video of this system and on the surface it looks successful, but it operates under conditions that would be unacceptable in the USA. They did not however dig into the problems with this system, and Curitiba is now looking at building a monorail. None less, there is always a push now to build BRT because of this field trip.

[jice]

Now I don't know what to root for... BRT (for now) because its cheaper, and hold off for heavy rail subway in the future.... or LRT, because subway will never happen