Nashville needs to put people first in next transit plan | Opinion

• This opinion column was written on behalf of 13 independent nonprofit organizations.
• Scroll down to see the list of groups that have proposed the Community Transportation Platform.

Metro Nashville’s transportation system is in crisis.

Eighty-two people died on Nashville’s streets last year, including 23 pedestrians. Only 19% of our streets have sidewalks. A paltry 2% of people living in Davidson County commute on public transit, the most space-efficient way to move people on increasingly congested streets.

Bus trips often require downtown transfers, even as more riders move away from the city center to find affordable housing. Commutes are getting longer for all Nashvillians as the region’s population booms.

Community Transportation Platform attends to the needs of Nashvillians

To highlight solutions to these urgent problems, our 13 independent, Nashville-based nonprofit organizations have endorsed and are proud to publish the Nashville Community Transportation Platform, a specific, detailed list of actions that Metro can take to close transportation access gaps in the next four years.

The Platform is built on four underlying principles: equity, safety, resilience and quality.

Our organizations are diverse and our ranks growing, but no list of organizations can represent the full breadth of Davidson County’s diversity. Collectively, we represent people who face some of the region’s greatest transportation challenges, including people who, like more than 7,500 Nashville households, do not own cars; people who work two jobs in order to afford the one car that their household shares; people who walk and bike to work on streets alongside cars driving more than 40 miles-per-hour.

Following the failure of both the Amp project and Let’s Move Nashville referendum, it is time for Metro to embrace a Nashvillian-first approach to planning, outreach and project implementation that can build trust in communities. This would enable Metro to understand and prioritize the needs of the Nashvillians who are least adequately served by our current transportation system.

These are the six priorities in our platform

Metro should channel the trust it earns into ambitious transportation investments focused on solving Nashvillians’ problems as quickly and efficiently as possible. Our groups identified six near-term transportation priorities for Nashville’s elected leaders, with more detail in the full platform:

1. Community-driven planning: building trust through proactive, inclusive and transparent outreach.
2. Implementing safe streets: making safety the first priority for all street projects.
3. Nashville-wide bus improvements: developing a bus network that is more useful to existing and potential WeGo riders.
4. Expanding the sidewalk and protected bike lane networks: making walking and biking viable options for everyone.
5. Reducing the number of cars downtown: prioritizing space-efficient transportation options like public transit, walking and biking to keep downtown Nashville moving.
6. Dedicated funding for a community-centered transportation plan: finding a way to grow Metro’s budget to meet the scale of our needs because an overwhelming majority of Nashvillians still want better transportation options.

Our transportation challenges are not for lack of plans — from NashvilleNext to WalknBike to nMotion and beyond, they all include great projects and policy proposals, many of which are included in our platform.

But Metro has lagged on implementation, and it lacks sufficient funding to reach the scale of impact that we will need to keep all Middle Tennesseans moving within and through the Music City.

Metro’s new class of 2019 elected officials can take this agenda and build on it if they are serious about addressing Nashville’s transportation challenges. Transportation priorities have been deferred, delayed or watered down for too long, but the 2019 election cycle presents an opportunity for both mayoral and Metro Council candidates to change the status quo.

Nashvillians should not settle for any less.

AARP of Tennessee

Conexión Américas

Conscious Conversation

Democracy Nashville & Democratic Communities

Music City Riders United

Nashville Civic Design Center

New Earth Matters

Tenant Power, Poder Inquilinxs

Transit Now Nashville

Urban League of Middle Tennessee

Urban League Young Professionals of Middle Tennessee

Walk Bike Nashville

Workers’ Dignity/Dignidad Obrera