Nashville Mayor Condenses Transportation Plans Into 3-Year ‘Action Agenda’

Nashville has now completed what Mayor Megan Barry is calling an “action agenda” to improve mass transit and mobility. The plan released on Wednesday is the most specific list of projects, to date, that she wants done in the near-term.

“Moving the Music City” is 85 pages — hefty, but still substantially shorter than at least four other transportation plans that Metro has completed in recent years. Among a few dozen proposals are the following:

• more frequent bus service, as well as longer hours of operation, on the 14 busiest routes in the city;
• safer intersections, more traffic-calming street designs in neighborhoods, and more sidewalks — all in pursuit of a pedestrian policy known as “Vision Zero,” which tries to eliminate pedestrian deaths, and;
• several ideas that tap into technology, such as timing the traffic lights to keep vehicles flowing.

The action agenda also includes early steps on designing light rail train service. The mayor will be promoting that idea and all of the action steps in preparation for a funding referendum that is expected to go before voters next year.

The new plan will be carried out by the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority and the newly established Division of Transportation within Metro Public Works.