$5.2B Nashville Transit Plan Calls For Extensive Rail, Huge Downtown Tunnel

NASHVILLE, TN — Pike-paralleling light rail, better bus service and a Brobdingnagian tunnel underneath downtown are the future of Nashville transit, if Mayor Megan Barry's $5.2 billion, 15-year proposal announced Tuesday comes to fruition.

Barry unveiled her "Let's Move Nashville" plan at the Music City Center, watched by, among others, her three immediate predecessors as she undertakes what is likely to be the signature effort of her mayoralty, along the lines of Nissan Stadium and Bridgestone Arena for Phil Bredesen and the Music City Center itself for Karl Dean.

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The project won't be cheap, easy or fast and, Barry said, will require four tax streams to fund.

In December, the Metro Council will vote on a proposal to put a sales tax increase referendum on the May 2018 ballot. That vote would raise the tax from 9.25 percent to 9.75 percent in July 2018, and Barry wants a jump to 10.25 percent in 2023. Those increases were made possible via the passage of Gov. Bill Haslam's IMPROVE Act and the mayor's office is quick to point out that nearly half of Davidson County sales taxes are paid by non-Metro residents.

Barry is also asking for two increases to the hotel-motel tax — a quarter next year and another 0.375 percent in 2023. That would take the rate the 6.375 percent. The rental car tax would increase from 1 percent to 1.2 percent. The business excise tax will also increase 20 percent under the plan.

While the "Let's Move" proposal clearly has its genesis in the nMotion Plan, a 25-year plan for the entire Midstate unveiled last year, it goes farther, particularly with the proposal for the huge tunnel underneath the city. The billion-dollar, 1.8 mile tunnel would run from Music City Central at Charlotte and Fifth under Fifth Avenue South to Lafayette, where a second, Music City Central-style hub would be built. Passenger access would also be available as the tunnel goes below Lower Broad. For decades, underground transit in Nashville has been flummoxed by the city's Karst geology, but the mayor's office says new drilling technology will make moving through the near-continuous block of limestone below the surface of the city far easier.

The tunnel would be exclusively used for buses and Barry's light-rail system, which would roughly follow the city's historic pikes, themselves asphalt echoes of pioneer pathways, hunting trails and buffalo traces. Barry proposed rail lines for Gallatin Pike, Nolesnville Pike, Murfreesboro Pike, and Charlotte, with another line — the Northwest Corridor — connecting Bordeaux to downtown via Charlotte and Buchanan. She also proposed a direct line from downtown to Nashville International Airport. The first of those rail lines would not be operational until 2026.

Residents would see a much quicker payoff from increased bus lines, some of which could be implemented as soon as 2019. Barry's plan includes expansion of the bus-rapid transit system to more corridors, an expansion of crosstown services, 20-hour-per-day service, and 15-minute peak service. In addition, she wants a complete conversion to electric buses, reduction or elimination of fares for people with incomes below the federal poverty line and more than two dozen "neighborhood hubs" that would connect bus and rail service, provide park-and-ride lots and bicycle access.

There will be six neighborhood meetings about the plan:

• Downtown Corridor: Nashville Farmers’ Market Food Court area – Thursday, October 26; 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
• Northwest Corridor: Tennessee State University, Elliott Hall – Thursday, November 2; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
• Charlotte Avenue Corridor: Lentz Public Health Center, Centennial Rooms – Thursday, November 9; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
• Murfreesboro Road Corridor: Trevecca, Tarter Student Activity Center – Tuesday, November 14; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
• Nolensville Road Corridor: Coleman Park, Gym – Saturday, November 18; 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m
• Gallatin Road Corridor: East Nashville Magnet High – Monday, November 20; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

See the official overview of the plan.

Photo via Metro Nashville Office of the Mayor