Nashville’s mayor tries to clarify how the East Bank redevelopment plan could benefit other neighborhoods

Mayor John Cooper and other transportation officials are trying to clarify how their ambitious Imagine East Bank plan could benefit more than just the east side of the city.

Since announcing a plan to redevelop land on the Cumberland River, Mayor John Cooper says he’s heard one question many times:

“I don’t live near the East Bank. How will this vision benefit my neighborhood?” Cooper says.

More: The mayor who ran on improving neighborhoods now wants to build a new one downtown

Standing on a gravel lot at the corner of 26th Avenue and Clarksville Pike in North Nashville, the mayor talked about how the plan offers the city an opportunity to improve connections with other neighborhoods.

The site is where the city will break ground on the new North Nashville Transit Center. Bus routes will intersect there, offering more direct ways to get to East Nashville without going through the busy downtown corridor.

“When we have very unreliable travel times through the downtown core, it means our service becomes less reliable,” says Steve Bland of WeGo.

But he says when transit hubs are connected, as the East Bank and North Nashville hubs will be, “all of a sudden you start to have a more reliable transit system.”