Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Is there any word if Nashville will ever get sometype of Light Rail System??? Its really needed for a City its size... If Charlotte has one Nashville could surely use one
Not anytime soon. The AMP is dead.
You could look up early threads for the AMP. Putting a light rail trolley in the street would cost $100M more with no benefit. Streets are too narrow to put in any trolley. No spare ROW to put in anything.
The last proposals for the AMP called for miles of street running bus BRT in traffic. West End is too narrow & congested to put in bus only lanes in place of traffic lanes.
We got BRT Lite on 3 corridors. Bus runs in same lanes as traffic. No jump lite for the bus to get ahead of traffic.
Maybe make HOV lanes on interstate to be for bus only.
Nashville does have Music City Star, heavy commuter rail. Route is the only one built not by CSX but a small carrier that went BK back in the 60's. Part of the route around downtown became I-440. The chance to put commuter rail is slim to none. You don't expect CSX to give away it's ROW for free.
You could look up early threads for the AMP. Putting a light rail trolley in the street would cost $100M more with no benefit. Streets are too narrow to put in any trolley. No spare ROW to put in anything.
The last proposals for the AMP called for miles of street running bus BRT in traffic. West End is too narrow & congested to put in bus only lanes in place of traffic lanes.
We got BRT Lite on 3 corridors. Bus runs in same lanes as traffic. No jump lite for the bus to get ahead of traffic.
Maybe make HOV lanes on interstate to be for bus only.
Nashville does have Music City Star, heavy commuter rail. Route is the only one built not by CSX but a small carrier that went BK back in the 60's. Part of the route around downtown became I-440. The chance to put commuter rail is slim to none. You don't expect CSX to give away it's ROW for free.
The bolded do not make sense to me.
On one hand, you say West End is too narrow and congested....it's a 7 lane road from I-440 to downtown. And as of right now, there are parallel parking spots along West End that already take up 2 of the travel lanes (except during rush hour)....so really the only time it would make a big difference is actually during rush hour....but part of the plan with the Amp was to synchronize the lights to improve traffic flow...so despite two fewer lanes, traffic may actually move smoother under that plan.
West End Ave is, by far, the most logical choice for any sort of dedicated lane on a city street. It connects the two most dense job centers in the city, and is the widest corridor of any to downtown. If you don't use West End, what other road do you use, and how does it make sense? 21st is more narrow and clogged than West End. 8th doesn't have the density and is also more narrow. Lafayette/Murfreesboro is a complete waste of time unless you build it all the way to the airport and Antioch. Saying West End isn't an option due to those factors pretty much says there IS no option for surface rapid transit. Then you're left with elevated or subterranean, which are both a lot more expensive.
Then you say HOV lanes on the interstate for bus only.....now THAT would be a waste of space. You would effectively reduce interstate capacity to 3 or 2 lanes per corridor, while having a lane that is occupied maybe every half hour if they heavily increased the number and frequency of commuter coaches.
I agree with Nashvols. If people are too worried about the effects of mass transit on West End then those people will never be happy with any transit system. Here are thousands of miles of roads in Nashville. Taking away two lanes of traffic along an 8 mile corridor isn't going to do a lot of damage.
OP, did you know there already is commuter rail in Nashville? So you have the option of moving to Lebanon and riding the rails. The city will be happy to see ridership increase.
Yes, I know it's just one line headed to the eastern suburbs..Nashville seems to need something a little more extensive and more coverage.
On one hand, you say West End is too narrow and congested....it's a 7 lane road from I-440 to downtown. And as of right now, there are parallel parking spots along West End that already take up 2 of the travel lanes (except during rush hour)....so really the only time it would make a big difference is actually during rush hour....but part of the plan with the Amp was to synchronize the lights to improve traffic flow...so despite two fewer lanes, traffic may actually move smoother under that plan.
Totally agree! There is also the backup at the Starbucks drive-thru that spills out into West End and blocks an in-bound lane in the morning. Plus there are several places where on the curb parking is abused during the rush hour and a lane is lost. I suppose stronger enforcement could help, but between the lag in police getting to the location where the obstruction occurs and ticketing and towing the vehicles, you have lost the lane for most of the rush. The new road alignment would permanently remove the curb-side parking and eliminate blockage during the rush or any other time of day. As for Starbucks, the blockage would have to be aggressively enforced and the backup regulated with signage and re-design of the drive-thru.
West End Ave is, by far, the most logical choice for any sort of dedicated lane on a city street. It connects the two most dense job centers in the city, and is the widest corridor of any to downtown. If you don't use West End, what other road do you use, and how does it make sense? 21st is more narrow and clogged than West End. 8th doesn't have the density and is also more narrow. Lafayette/Murfreesboro is a complete waste of time unless you build it all the way to the airport and Antioch. Saying West End isn't an option due to those factors pretty much says there IS no option for surface rapid transit. Then you're left with elevated or subterranean, which are both a lot more expensive.
Agree. You have to go where the demand is. West End is a continuation of downtown with major offices, hotels and residential. It has major attractors like Vanderbilt, the three hospital complexes, centennial park and the mid-town/Music Row tourist district. This corridor is a no-brainer regarding need for mass transit.
Then you say HOV lanes on the interstate for bus only.....now THAT would be a waste of space. You would effectively reduce interstate capacity to 3 or 2 lanes per corridor, while having a lane that is occupied maybe every half hour if they heavily increased the number and frequency of commuter coaches.
Agreed, again. I don't see the loss of laneage and vehicular capacity being balanced by a reduction in vehicular traffic as a result of using the mass transit options. Plus the transit will not drop you off a half mile from your doorstep.
During the Mayoral campaign, someone proposed free bus service for the city. There may be something to it, although I might charge a dollar a ride. Get different looking buses (more trolley or rail like) and have 15 minute schedules on major arteries. Use smaller, electric vehicles for the connector routes.
Now, back on topic! Yes, Nashville is a special place.
Don't hold your breath for rail or any kind of mass transit to blanket the Metro area. Physically and practically, Nashville has three strikes against it. It's hilly, the historic road rights of way are narrow, and most importantly, it's very low-density.
I just checked a graph from governing.com, that shows Nashville with a population density of 1,265 people per square mile. How does that stack up with other comparable cities? Last. Charlotte, mentioned earlier, has twice the density, at 2,457. Atlanta's sprawling, car-strangled mess is denser still, with 3,164 per mile. Dallas and Houston are in the mid-3,000s, and St. Louis has a whopping 5,157 residents per sq. mi. On another list of 200 cities, only eight were less dense than Nashville, including Huntsville, Oklahoma City and Anchorage.
My transplanted home town of Denver (3,922) has struggled to build a regional light rail system. After 20 years of sporadic construction and two contentious tax elections, we'll achieve a five-armed spoke and hub system next year. All used freeway margins or surplus railroad rights of way, and the routes were generally flat and straight.
Probably the best Nashville can hope for are local improvements like the Gulch pedestrian bridge and local circulator buses. But what was that light rail train I thought I saw crossing the river during a setting shot of "Nashville" tonight. Or was I dreaming?
It used to be special. Now its just like every other. A man from New Jersey opening up a bar in the next trendy area of city is not what i call CHARM.
Sorry to disagree, but I think I have to. Having known Nashville as long as you have, it's probably easier for you to look at it and see it in terms of what has been lost; but as someone who never met the city until 4 years ago, it's perhaps easier for me to see it in terms of what still makes it very, very special.
When I'm there, I can sense how much of the old Nashville has been lost and commercialized; but at the same time, I can also sense how much of the original, unique personality of the city still remains. I absolutely love Nashville; largely because I still feel a strong sense of what it has always been. I think it's easily one of the Top Ten cities in the United States - in no particular order, I'd say New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Twin Cities, Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago all belong on that list, with maybe a half dozen other cities jostling for the last few spots. To this Wisconsin yankee, Nashville is one of the jewels of the Southland, and the only other cities that give me the same vibe and the same "look what's happening now!" energy are NY and LA.
I know you love your city for what it was, but please know that those of us who love it so much for what it is now love it so as we do because we can "feel" so much of what it was when you first came to love it. I don't care about the trendy bar that the guy from New Jersey opened; I probably won't ever set foot in it. I come there for the Ryman, because nobody from New Jersey can ever open another one of those somewhere.
Don't hold your breath for rail or any kind of mass transit to blanket the Metro area. Physically and practically, Nashville has three strikes against it. It's hilly, the historic road rights of way are narrow, and most importantly, it's very low-density.
I just checked a graph from governing.com, that shows Nashville with a population density of 1,265 people per square mile. How does that stack up with other comparable cities? Last. Charlotte, mentioned earlier, has twice the density, at 2,457. Atlanta's sprawling, car-strangled mess is denser still, with 3,164 per mile. Dallas and Houston are in the mid-3,000s, and St. Louis has a whopping 5,157 residents per sq. mi. On another list of 200 cities, only eight were less dense than Nashville, including Huntsville, Oklahoma City and Anchorage.
You are forgetting the big asterisk with Nashville's population density. Nashville has a metro form of government meaning the city is the county. That includes vast areas in northern and northwestern Davidson County that are almost uninhabited. Indianapolis, Louisville, Lexington, and Jacksonville are some other cities that have a metro form of government and will have artificially low densities (as well as artificially high populations relative to the size of the urban environment).
Don't hold your breath for rail or any kind of mass transit to blanket the Metro area. Physically and practically, Nashville has three strikes against it. It's hilly, the historic road rights of way are narrow, and most importantly, it's very low-density.
I don't think hilly has much to do with mass transit. Plenty of hilly cities have accomplished that feat. I do agree that the relatively narrow roads present a problem with ROW, which is why for COMMUTER rail, I think the only real option is to find a way to deal with CSX. Light Rail seems nice, and could work on certain corridors, but for the city overall, a spider of LRT routes would present major problems for surface street traffic.
...as for very low density.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheatridger
I just checked a graph from governing.com, that shows Nashville with a population density of 1,265 people per square mile. How does that stack up with other comparable cities? Last. Charlotte, mentioned earlier, has twice the density, at 2,457. Atlanta's sprawling, car-strangled mess is denser still, with 3,164 per mile. Dallas and Houston are in the mid-3,000s, and St. Louis has a whopping 5,157 residents per sq. mi. On another list of 200 cities, only eight were less dense than Nashville, including Huntsville, Oklahoma City and Anchorage.
....context. Context is the main problem with density arguments. You checked a graph from governing.com that shows that Nashville has a population density of 1,265 per square mile. Here's the problem with that. Nashville as a city coexists with Davidson County. Davidson County minus the minor satellite cities is 475 square miles. The problem with using that figure is that about 1/3 of Davidson County has extremely rough terrain and has very low density. Using the 2010 numbers, I found that just 32,163 inhabited an area of 184.9 square miles (a density of about 174 per square mile. This is rural land. If you subtract those numbers from the overall city, the remainder (in 2010) has 569,059 in 290.2 square miles. That alone raises the density to 1,961....and still includes a lot of rural/undeveloped land in other parts of town. When I added Census districts with 1,000+ population density together, I found that about 80% of the population lives in roughly 40% of the land area, with a density of 2,400 per square mile.
In any case, density can be a deceptive number without looking beyond county or city boundaries. Nashville is not a dense city, but don't let the municipal stats fool you. It's not less than half as dense as other Southern cities. Most fully developed portions of the city are 2,000-5,000 per square mile density. Some up and over 10,000 per square mile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheatridger
My transplanted home town of Denver (3,922) has struggled to build a regional light rail system. After 20 years of sporadic construction and two contentious tax elections, we'll achieve a five-armed spoke and hub system next year. All used freeway margins or surplus railroad rights of way, and the routes were generally flat and straight.
Denver is a completely different and uncomparable situation. Flat as a freaking pancake, and developed in a relatively tight pattern.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheatridger
Probably the best Nashville can hope for are local improvements like the Gulch pedestrian bridge and local circulator buses. But what was that light rail train I thought I saw crossing the river during a setting shot of "Nashville" tonight. Or was I dreaming?
What Nashville can hope for is people that don't limit their vision to what can handle current traffic, but what can handle future growth. Nashville can also hope that the bumpkins in the state government won't submarine transit plans because they don't fall in line with the vision of Americans For Prosperity.
Don't hold your breath for rail or any kind of mass transit to blanket the Metro area. Physically and practically, Nashville has three strikes against it. It's hilly, the historic road rights of way are narrow, and most importantly, it's very low-density.
I just checked a graph from governing.com, that shows Nashville with a population density of 1,265 people per square mile. How does that stack up with other comparable cities? Last. Charlotte, mentioned earlier, has twice the density, at 2,457. Atlanta's sprawling, car-strangled mess is denser still, with 3,164 per mile. Dallas and Houston are in the mid-3,000s, and St. Louis has a whopping 5,157 residents per sq. mi. On another list of 200 cities, only eight were less dense than Nashville, including Huntsville, Oklahoma City and Anchorage.
My transplanted home town of Denver (3,922) has struggled to build a regional light rail system. After 20 years of sporadic construction and two contentious tax elections, we'll achieve a five-armed spoke and hub system next year. All used freeway margins or surplus railroad rights of way, and the routes were generally flat and straight.
Probably the best Nashville can hope for are local improvements like the Gulch pedestrian bridge and local circulator buses. But what was that light rail train I thought I saw crossing the river during a setting shot of "Nashville" tonight. Or was I dreaming?
I think you may be off in the Density department as other posters have stated, Nashville is a Consolidated Government, so it may look less dense on paper but no less dense than a lot of Cities you listed above. Also Nashville already has Commuter Rail, something Some of the above Cities like Atlanta don't have as of yet. They do have heavy rail and light rails though.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
