Transit Week - Day 7

Come out and tour downtown at the Live It Up! Downtown Home Tour, by the Nashville Downtown Partnership. Click here for more information.

See you downtown!

Transit Week - Day 6

It's the annual Earth Day Festival at Centennial Park! Visit us at our Transit Now booth from 11:00-7:00 for free giveaways.

Transit Week - Day 5

Transit Week continues with tonight's Progressive Party! See below for details.

And don't forget to take the Pledge to Ride. Currently, 66 people have taken the pledge and committed to ride transit at least once before the end of Transit Week. Help us break the 100 mark by signing the pledge right now!

Transit Week - Day 4

Join us today for the April Urban Design Forum at the Nashville Civic Design Center. The program topic will be Green Ribbon 2010: Addressing Nashville's Transportation + Air Quality Issues. This event, in partnership with the Civic Design Center and the Clean Air Partnership of Middle Tennessee, will feature presentations and a panel discussion with local experts.



Presenters and Panelists Include:

Gary Gaston, Nashville Civic Design Center, Design Director - Gary will present the Green Ribbon Committee Updates related to Mobility and Air Quality.

Ed Cole, Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee, Executive Director, and former director of environment and planning for TDOT - Today marks Ed’s first day as head of the Transit Alliance.

Quincy Styke, State of Tennessee Deputy Director, Division of Air Pollution Control - Quincy has over 35 years experience in Air Pollution Control. He has prepared regulation and program development to implement Titles III, IV & V of the Clean Air Act.

Skip Lawrence, Green Ribbon Committee, Mobility Committee Co-Chair

Thursday, April 15
5:15 PM • Meet and Greet
5:45-7:00 PM • Program

Nashville Civic Design Center
138 Second Avenue North • Suite 106

Transit Week - Day 2

Today, you can join us in celebrating Transit Week by hopping on the Music City Circuit Blue Line and heading down to the Nashville Farmers' Market for CityTHINK. Grab some lunch and stop by our booth for some free stuff...and maybe a few surprises! We will be there from 11:30am to 1:00pm, so we hope to see you there.

Don't forget to take the Pledge to Ride by clicking on the link to the right throughout the week.

Transit Week is Here!

We hope you will join us in this week's activities.

Today's highlighted activity is an online pledge to ride transit at least once this week (bus, Music City Star, Music City Circuit). Click here to sign the pledge and take the challenge! Encourage your friends to take the pledge by clicking on the link to the right throughout the week.

Also, check out our column in The Tennessean, Smart Traffic Solutions Boost Economy.

Finally, here is a video of Mayor Karl Dean giving his endorsement of Transit Week.

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