City Paper Reports Music City Circuit a Hit with Downtown Lunch and Weekend Crowds

In "Ride the Line" City Paper writer William Williams reports that the Music City Circuit is well over projected ridership numbers for its first month of operation: 16,000 in the first 4 weeks! It should come as no surprise that Blue Route that circulates between Riverfront Station and the Nashville Farmer's Market posts the highest numbers on weekdays during lunch and the Green Route that runs from the Riverfront to the Gulch until midnight is popular on Friday and Saturday night.

MTA is looking to improve on the early success of The Circuit by continuing to monitor ridership and plans to improve efficiency by responding to demand with the appropriate sized vehicles.

Ms. Cheap sees value in the Music City Circuit

The Tennessean's Ms. Cheap gave a big thumbs up to MTA's the Circuit this morning:

It's definitely good news that the Metro Transit Authority is launching two new free-to-ride bus routes that circulate through downtown Nashville for students, downtown workers, tourists and other visitors.

The routes will be great for workers going out to lunch as well as for folks traveling between sports venues, the convention center, hotels and other attractions such as the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, the Bicentennial Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

There will be service every 10-20 minutes depending on the time of day. The Gulch route will run from 6:30 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and 11 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays. The Nashville Farmers Market route will start at 6:30 a.m. and run to 6 p.m. on weekdays, switching to an 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule on Saturdays.

US DOT announces $280 million for streetcars, trolleys

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the availability of $280 million for urban circulator projects such as streetcars, buses, and bus facilities to support communities, expand business opportunities and improve people's quality of life while also creating jobs.

The money represents the first batch of funding by the Obama Administration for its Livability Initiative, a joint venture of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"This represents a significant effort to promote livable communities, improve the quality of life for more Americans and create more transportation choices that serve the needs of individual communities," Secretary LaHood said. "Fostering the concept of livability in transportation projects will stimulate America's neighborhoods to become safer, healthier and more vibrant."

Read the Full Article at Dallas Morning News - Blogs

Circulator Charrette: Table 3

Table 3 identified their assets to be served by a circulator in terms of neighborhoods or areas, identified by the large blue circles on the map. Mary gives a quick summary of Table 3's ideal and prioritized route proposals:

Our big vision, without budget constraints, focused on the idea that transit should loop like clover leaves or petals into the surrounding ring neighborhoods. The concept was to connect these neighborhoods on the plan, circled in blue, with transit noted with dashed black lines.

Our Downtown priority loop (shown with green tape) has a 7-day a week route with evening hours and 12 minute headways. The line serves 8th Avenue, to the Farmer’s Market, then 2nd Avenue and loops back on Demonbreun with another section of the Circulator that ties in the Gulch area. This Circulator is the largest of the three proposed scenarios in the Downtown core but we noted existing bus lines could be modified with the proposal and discussed the need for the light rail spine down Broadway to the Vandy area.

The green tape was an innovation that table 3 requested on the fly. It included shorter headways during lunch hours and the 12 minute headways at other times. We fit it into the charrette method by allowing it in increments of 7", compared to the 6" blue tape and the 8" red or yellow tape. See the original circulator charrette post below for the full, original method.

I hope you have enjoyed reading these summaries about the circulator charrette, and I hope to see you at future Transit Now Nashville events.

-Cliff

Circulator Charrette: Table 2

Dave gives us an update on Table 2's proposal from last week's Circulator Charrette:

Table 2 at the Circulator Charrette concentrated on assets centered around downtown, with linkages to the Gulch, SoBro and Metro Offices, over to the Farmers Market and Germantown, plus across the river to LP Field (with the assumption that the current Park N’Ride would be replaced with this circulator).  Ideally, we would like to have a linkage from the Gulch on Division St. over to the Metro offices on 2^nd Ave., but currently it’s cut off by the railroad tracks.   This would allow for the circulator to flow through the Gulch over to Metro and back downtown along 2^nd Ave. and into the central business district. 

 

When we had to prioritize our route, the first thing we realized was that we needed to have some higher frequency buses with extended hours in the core.  The Blue Route serves that purpose and allows employees to get around the core quickly and easily, but also serves the late-hour tourist market.  Since LP Field hosts basic M-F business-hour commuters, the White Route would be limited to the base 10 minute headway, business-hour set up it currently uses.  The Red route would be extended hours and weekends only that would allow movement between the core and the increasingly denser diversified market the Gulch represents.  Now residents of the Gulch can travel downtown and tourists can visit the restaurants in the Gulch seven days a week and into the evening. 

Circulator Charrette: Table 1 Proposal

Table 1 at the Circulator Charrette concentrated on assets Downtown and in the nearby East Nashville and Vandy areas, including employment centers, the Farmer's Market, LP Field, the Gulch, and Vanderbilt University (see red circles in photo). Their ideal, cost is no limit route (shown in green) served all of these assets, stretching from Five Points in the east to the edge of the University. When they had to prioritize the route, they decided to endorse a 7 day a week route with evening hours and 10 minute headways (indicated by the red tape). They served two loops, one in the core, one in Midtown by Vandy, joined by an axis along Broadway.

Tomorrow: Table 2.

-Cliff

Downtown Circulator Charrette

One of the highlights of Transit Week was the Urban Design Forum hosted by Transit Now and the Nashville Civic Design Center to discuss the design of a downtown circulator. We were very pleased with the turnout, particularly the number of design professionals. We started the evening with a brief overview of previous studies, best practices, and peer cities, and then went into a three stage mapping exercise. The crowd was broken into three teams. During stage 1, each team identified the assets they thought should be served by a downtown circulator. During stage 2, they each designed a "money is no object" ideal route. During stage 3, they had to prioritize their routes' service features using a "taping" exercise developed by Transit Now. The tape exercise represented a simplified cost comparison based upon the relative operational costs as determined by vehicle frequency, hours served, and other factors. We used colored tape to represent four options:

White tape = basic service with 10 minute headways, M-F business day hours
Yellow tape = increased frequency with 5 minute headways
Red tape = increased hours with evening and weekend service
Blue tape = increased frequency and increased hours

Each table was given approximately “5.5 miles” of white tape. The map scale was 1 inch equals 400 feet, so they each got 72 inches of white tape (72” equaled 28,800 feet, or 5.45 miles). They could use all of this tape toward covering the ideal route they had already identified in the previous stage, or use some or all of it to buy enhanced miles. For simplicity’s sake, the tape was dispensed in standard lengths (white in 12” strips, yellow and red in 8” strips, and blue in 6” strips). The teams could trade one for one a longer white piece of tape for a shorter piece of tape of another color. So, for example, they could choose to make their entire route with increased frequency and enhanced hours and receive 36” of blue tape. They could choose to use a mix of tape colors, as long as the total didn't exceed an amount equal to 72” of white tape. For comparison, Chattanooga operates a 1.5 mile route with extended hours and 5 minute headways. The cost for their system in this exercise would be 20 inches of blue tape, equal to 40 inches (3 miles) of white tape.

Over the next couple of days, I will post pictures of each of the teams' maps and discuss their proposals. Over the next few weeks, the Transit Now crew will use the charrette material to develop a more in-depth document to submit to MTA. We also plan to make Google maps version of the routes for further input and collaboration.

-Cliff

CityTHINK

Please join us for the Nashville Civic Design Center's March CityTHINK, which will feature a presentation by Transit Now entitled “Infrastructure Investments for a Sustainable Downtown
Nashville - the Circulator.” The presentation is on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm at the Music City Central community meeting room. The MCC is located on Charlotte Avenue between 4th and 5th Avenues.