It was not too long ago that I remember voting on the Nashville transit ballot. If passed, this new public train would be built on West End Avenue, this street is one of the main arteries that connects downtown Nashville (with all its jobs) all around west Nashville area. Not to mention it crosses a freeway and passes two huge neighborhoods (Belle Meade and Bellevue) amongst other homes all around this area. This transit could have created a link for Nashville to build upon in the public transportation department for years to come.
Public train would have saved thousands of carbon footprints all over West Nashville, as well as saving millions of dollars over time for everyone in this area. Its also worth mentioning that living in a city with a strong train transportation depot catalysts a sense of community amongst everyone that lives near the station and commutes by using the transit system. In early2019a stat recorded 83 new people moving to Nashville a day. That is now almost a year and a half a go and it is still substantially growing perhaps even at a faster rate.
New infrastructure must be implemented in the city to keep up with this huge growth. It is said that Nashville is becoming the next LA and a substantial amount of LA natives are starting to move to Nashville due to the growing expense of rent on the west coast. With Nashville having a music, movie and TV scene as well as fine, luxurious, party scene similar to LA it is proving to be a new hub for people from the west coast area. New infrastructure for the city could've started years ago with this rail line but the people living in West Nashville could not see the future and were too worried about "construction". The building of the rail line would've taken 3 years and would have jumpstarted a cleaner more renewable growth for all of Nashville and other growing cities to follow.
Essay
ReplyDeleteCommented on Ed's post
and Tanner's posts
We Definitely need public transit not just in Nashville, but also regionally. Imagine if there were train lines from Franklin to Nashville, or from Murfreesboro to Nashville. So much traffic congestion from car commuters would be eliminated (as well as the accidents). I've always been jealous of Europe with their train infrastructure, and I think trains really need to make a comeback in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do admit that in an Urban environment Public Transportation is a better idea, but my question is what about more rural areas though. I mention this because rural areas tend to not have any public transportation due to several reasons mostly due to the costs of maintaining such a system. This is the main reason that the railway system of travel died out in the early 1900's
ReplyDeleteI actually think traffic in M'boro is worse than N'ville, much of the time. Koch $ (heavily invested in fossil fuels of course) sabotaged that initiative, and with the tenor of the Supreme Ct going in its current direction we're going to have to get more resourceful in opposing the opponents.
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