Nashville is a rapidly growing city. The housing market is one of the highest in the nation (Skovira). In comparison, the job market in Nashville is consistently high, and has less than a four percent unemployment rate (realestate.usnews.com). How will this impact downtown rush hour and its commuting drivers? Drivers commuting to and from downtown may experience many different commutes. Furthermore, those getting on the interstate between the evening rush hours experience an added thirty two minutes to their commutes (tomtom.com). These thirty two minutes a day is the equivalent of sitting in traffic for five days out of the year (tomtom.com). The transportation system upgrade in Nashville is long overdue. There is no easy, quick way to …show more content…
To help with the vast amount of commuters, a train system stretching from downtown Nashville to Lebanon was introduced in September 2006. The Tennessean Newspaper reported in 2016 that an estimated amount of 1,100 daily riders commute on the Music City Star (Humbles). If everyone who is a commuter on the train used to drive, that is 1,100 less cars cramming into rush hour traffic and less pollution being generated. How would a futuristic transit system benefit the city of downtown Nashville? The new hybrid-electric buses would reduce the amount of gas the government has to buy and light rails would reduce the congestion on roads. It would also bring more jobs with the construction. This transit proposal would introduce many employment opportunities, for example, construction workers building the sidewalks or more bus drivers. Nashville’s Transit Referendum is backed up by a huge number of businesses and universities . Universities such as, Trevecca, Tennessee State, Lipscomb, Fisk, and Belmont are supporting the mass transit system. Hospitals and health companies have taken a positive stand supporting this rail system such as Vanderbilt Medical Center and Change Healthcare. Engineering companies and coalitions such as, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, ABC Greater TN Chapter and even the American Council of Engineering Companies of TN are in favor of this (Transitfornashville.com). A fraction of Nashville citizens,
Trains are everywhere in our society, we have jokes, toys, movies, and children’s television shows, but did you know rail transport started in 6th century Greece? The city of San Antonio, Texas is a fast-growing metropolitan city that has a very tremendous amount of people. It has been estimated that the city will grow by another million people in the next ten to twenty years. San Antonio’s traffic is becoming a huge issue and is quickly approaching to be one of the most congested areas in the states. The public transport in San Antonio consists of a very complex bus system, taxicabs, Trolley’s downtown, and the growing market of ridesharing drivers. San Antonio has had many talks and negotiations throughout the last two decades on getting a Light Rail system constructed to help with public transportation. This proposal is for specific businesses, the city of San Antonio and Bexar County to come to a funding agreement.
Second, the development of new public transit systems, was important in shaping the design of our cities and the growth of our cities by enabling people to move further away from the inner city. Early on, large cities didn’t really have public transportation. Their main source of transportation were horse drawn wagons and walking. In conclusion, most people lived near on in the downtown area, where most of the working establishments were located. Because of this, it made big cites crowed and congested. With the breakthrough of the “el”, electric streetcars, and subways, around 1867, cities began expand more. Those who were fortunate enough to move out of the dirty cities and into better neighborhoods surrounded outside the city, did so. The new transit systems in most cities allowed people to escape the chaos of urban life and provided potential for growth of our cities.
Second, the development of new public transit systems, was important in shaping the design of our cities and the growth of our cities by enabling people to move further away from the inner city. Early on, large cities had very little and inadequate transportation. Their main source of transportation were horse drawn wagons and walking. As a result, most people lived or took housing near downtown, which was where most of the working establishments were located. This made the big cities very congested. However with the breakthrough of the “el”, electric streetcars, and subways, around 1867, cities began to open up more. Those who were fortunate enough to move out of the slums and into better surrounding neighborhoods, did so. The more affluent of the white-collar classes moved into the suburban areas. In contrast, many of the very wealthy continued to live in city mansions. The new transit systems in most cities allowed people to escape the chaos of urban life and provided potential for growth of our cities.
Fifty cents of the gasoline tax dollar increase will go towards making the public transit system more feasible to people. This includes more bus stop locations, more arrival and departure times, more accessible train and airplane facilities, and increased safety precautions. Cheaper fares would also be a good means to increase the use of public transportation. In Huntsville, Alabama where the town is trying to have an efficient city system and is doing well at it, the tourist trolley fare is one dollar per trip and two
nMotion is a controversial plan to invest more than $6B over the next 25 years in the public transportation infrastructure. The plan includes steps to simplify the system, develop BRT lines, build rail lines, and regionalize service to enhance efficiency. Many region leaders agree that the community must move in this direction, but unfortunately it is controversial due to the fact that public support for such an investment is not strong.
Traffic in downtown Austin, Texas is becoming a sever issue and is continuing to become slower and more congested every day. Austin ranks 4th on a list of U.S. cities with the least efficient roadways, and with its remarkable growth rate, the issue can only get worse. After reading numerous articles based on opinions and statements from local city planners and engineers, the best way to see an improvement in the traffic issue is to increase the amount of public transportation in the Austin area. The increase of public transportation would provide fast travel time and would help reduce the amount of money, commuters and locals use on gas by a substantial amount per year. Though many may argue the that we have enough public transportation already, reducing the number of personal vehicles on the road would decrease the amount of bumper to bumper traffic experienced on a daily basis, as well as increase the options for those commuting to the city every day. there are many possible solutions, such as widening the highways or even building them underground, these solutions however are not the most economically correct and productive way to relieve traffic downtown.
The traffic problem in Atlanta drains both time and money for thousands. It has been shown that Atlanta drivers spend on average 51 unnecessary hours behind the wheel each year (WSB Radio, 2013). That’s more than two 24 hour days spent sitting in traffic. During all this time spent, Atlantans end up spending upwards of $1000 per year on gas and collectively use 63,000,000 gallons of gas each year while sitting in traffic (WSB Radio, 2013). Traffic in Atlanta has been a huge waste of time and money for Atlantans for years and something needs to be done to alleviate the
The author of this article wrote that it is important for the citizens of Detroit to vote for a public rail and bus transit system. Puentes states that there are a myriad amount of jobs but there is also no way to get to them. Although there are many buses, trains and routes in Detroit, there are no connecting routes from one region to another or to the city itself. This makes it harder for people to get to their jobs in less than an hour. Something else the author mentions is that most of the families in Detroit receive low income, so they cannot pay for all the buses needed in order to go to work.
Perry’s answer is to shift the traffic away from metropolitan areas. If truck drivers can bypass San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, the time to their destination would probably save them an entire day in travel. Freight rail services could veer away from San Antonio’s railroad yard, an institution bustling with activity in the wee hours of the morning. Also, commuter rail can solve environmental problems and help families keep in touch anywhere in the state without the over-burdening costs of driving (Perry).
With 809,958 people living in Charlotte public transit is de rigueur; public transit gives people options on how to go to school, work, or the doctor as well as reduce congestion, and grow communities. After six months with no CEO, Charlotte Area Transit System(CATS) appointed John Lewis Jr.; he is experienced with public transit systems and enthusiastic for growth in Charlotte. Still there
Also, the system will add in jobs so more people will begin to work in side of the county, growing its economy. Consider a small family: two children, their parent, and a grandparent. This family only has one car. Between work, school, and doctor’s appointments, the parent of this household is constantly stressed just worrying about getting everyone where they need to be while also getting to work on time every day. Then, what if the parent has a blue collar job, (common in Twiggs County), they may not make enough money to afford to skip work for doctor’s appointments. Thus, the grandparents and the kids have to forgo their healthcare because the parents does not have the time. By including a public transportation system, even if just to the local hospitals, everyone is guaranteed a way to the doctor’s office without the parent missing work. This decreases the mental distress of the parent and increases the physical inactivity of the
The fact of the matter is that streetcars are more efficient than buses. They are safer, they use less resources to keep them operating properly, there is less traffic compared to gasoline buses and they run on schedule. The companies worked hard to sway the public’s opinion on the conversion, and “found” advocates to speak in favor of converting streetcar systems to bus systems. Advocates such as John Bauer attempted to please the powerful companies, however these advocates had little empirical evidence, and were hard to take serioulsy with statements such as, “Streetcars maintain an average speed of only eight miles per hour, whereas [trackless] trolleys and gasoline buses average 12 miles per hour. The most modern streetcar equipment could make only about 10 miles per hour” (object.cato.org).
Phoenix is large city in the United States and it is also the biggest city in Arizona. There are lots of who people live, work and study here. Therefore, there are always traffic jams in the rush hours which are morning and afternoon. If the government could improve the public transportation, for example, by adding more buses, there would be fewer people driving cars. According to Tribune (2009) Arizona lobbyists criticize claims that spending more money to improve public transportation is important, not only for creating more jobs, but also for help for reduce traffic, air pollution, and our dependence on oil. This shows that the public transportation here should be improved. Improving public transportation will also be beneficial for citizens in Arizona. It is because there will be fewer traffic jams then people will be taking buses instead of
Public transportation is serious need of a massive overhaul in this nation. We are in desperate need to catch up to the European standard of public transportation in this country. In Europe, citizens can travel across cities, bodies of water, and even counties with their state of the art public transportation system. Europeans are not nearly as reliant on cars and oil as the United States is because they have the much more practical option of taking the transportation provided to them by the government to where ever they need to go. They have set a model that the United States needs to strive for and meet in the near future.
Public transportation can help reduce stress caused by driving, save money, and also protect our environment by reducing the number of vehicles on the road. In order to get more people off the road and into the public transportation system we must increase the number of buses and taxis that are available. We must also increase the number of stops available for daily bus routes. With more stops on the map more people are likely to use the bus system. Each city or town will be able to decide where more bus stops are needed and make the adjustments necessary to provide better service for the taxpaying citizens. Of course, none of this is possible without adequate funds in each town/city and the gas tax is guaranteed to provide those funds. Providing more public transportation will help us reach our ultimate goal of protecting the environment and ourselves.