Do you support the AMP? (Memphis, Knoxville: real estate, 2014, transfer)

[BayAreaDave]

To be honest I don't think the well off people in West Nashville are going to use the amp, it seems the working class use public transportation in this city much more.

[nashvols]

Originally Posted by ChesterCopperpot1

How is the AMP supposed to work anyways? Does it have to stop at redlights and other traffic laws like a bus does?

From what I understand, it will have it's own dedicated lanes, and will have signal priority along the route. I don't know if that means it would never stop at a traffic light, but I'm guessing it would be designed to sync up in a way where the traffic lights ahead of it would stop when the buses are at the stations.

[nashvols]

Originally Posted by BayAreaDave

To be honest I don't think the well off people in West Nashville are going to use the amp, it seems the working class use public transportation in this city much more.

I don't think you'll see much ridership out of the folks along West End Ave between 440 and St Thomas...but I do think it will get some use from the office workers in the Vanderbilt area.

[Hey_Hey]

Originally Posted by nashvols

I don't think you'll see much ridership out of the folks along West End Ave between 440 and St Thomas...but I do think it will get some use from the office workers in the Vanderbilt area.

I think what you say is true now, but 10 years from now may be a different story. I can't help but notice how many of the outspoken critics of the AMP who live in those areas by St Thomas are >60. It's a neighborhood that largely made up of older people; people who bought in their 30s and 40s 20-30 years ago when those neighborhoods started rising again. There is going to be a lot of turnover in that neighborhood in the next decade or two and the new residents will be transit riders and supporters.

[the_commuter]

I hope AMP is a major success. I like BRT more than LRT. The latter is quite inflexible and assumes that population centers are static. Having park-and-ride can help alleviate that to an extent, but if I had to choose one or the other, I'd take BRT (almost) every time.

Ideally, of course, a good city bus system, an extensive system of sidewalks, LRT (with park-and-ride!), commuter heavy rail, and BRT should all work together efficiently. Nashville is on its way. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

[bigcitymike]

Does MTA provide ridership percentages for their routes? I see a lot of buses that aren't filled as I drive around town. Seems like 10-20% max. I'd hate to see the AMP come in and be a ghost town.

Light rail transit (LRT) is the way to go. I watched the LTR in Sacramento grow from just a little bit of track to being the eleventh busiest light rail system in the United States. In 1987 the 18.3-mile (29.5 km) light rail “starter line” opened, linking the northeastern (Interstate 80) and eastern (Highway 50) corridors with Downtown Sacramento. As light rail ridership increased, RT continued to expand the light rail system. They carry almost 14 million passengers a year. In a lot of ways, I often see Nashville and Sacramento as somewhat similar cities.

List of United States light rail systems by ridership - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They started small, and just built onto it, extending it farther and farther into the suburbs. Nashville could easily follow the same process.

Nashville needs to get on this sooner than later. Biggest hurdle with LRT is, it won't be cheap. Though that doesn't seem to be a problem for Metro with some of their projects.

[yank283]

Originally Posted by bigcitymike

Does MTA provide ridership percentages for their routes? I see a lot of buses that aren't filled as I drive around town. Seems like 10-20% max. I'd hate to see the AMP come in and be a ghost town.

Light rail transit (LRT) is the way to go. I watched the LTR in Sacramento grow from just a little bit of track to being the eleventh busiest light rail system in the United States. In 1987 the 18.3-mile (29.5 km) light rail “starter line” opened, linking the northeastern (Interstate 80) and eastern (Highway 50) corridors with Downtown Sacramento. As light rail ridership increased, RT continued to expand the light rail system. They carry almost 14 million passengers a year. In a lot of ways, I often see Nashville and Sacramento as somewhat similar cities.

List of United States light rail systems by ridership - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They started small, and just built onto it, extending it farther and farther into the suburbs. Nashville could easily follow the same process.

Nashville needs to get on this sooner than later. Biggest hurdle with LRT is, it won't be cheap. Though that doesn't seem to be a problem for Metro with some of their projects.

I probably would prefer LTR also, but we have to take the best alternative out there. As far as it not being cheap, neither is highway construction and road maintenance (which is paid for by tax dollars) and BRT could always be converted to LRT in the future. Even though people will be technically riding on buses, you can't really compare MTA to a mass transit system. The efficiency and convenience of BRT will appeal to wider potential ridership than MTA buses. I'm afraid the new baseball stadium will eventually be approved but will "derail" starting mass transit in Nashville. We need to get our priorities in line here.

[groovamos]

Originally Posted by Brandoncraig

the mistakes cities like Houston and Atlanta have made but I find it funny when people say, the city is becoming like Atlanta when it is not even close.

I would like to see the contributor expound on what mistakes Houston has made since it is where I live. Or does this literally mean cities like Houston but not Houston itself? Help me out here.

[Hey_Hey]

Originally Posted by groovamos

I would like to see the contributor expound on what mistakes Houston has made since it is where I live. Or does this literally mean cities like Houston but not Houston itself? Help me out here.

Atlanta, and to a lesser degree Houston and other sunbelt cities, is known for uncontrolled growth of suburban style developments which further expand the metro area but do it in a very unsustainable way. Instead of building more high density developments in the core they built more low-moderate density housing at the periphery. This creates traffic nightmares since someone living in the suburbs will drive many more miles to work than their urban living coworker. It also sets up a type of development that is difficult to serve with mass transit because of the low density quality of suburban developments.

[groovamos]

Originally Posted by Hey_Hey

Atlanta, and to a lesser degree Houston and other sunbelt cities, is known for uncontrolled growth of suburban style developments which further expand the metro area but do it in a very unsustainable way. Instead of building more high density developments in the core they built more low-moderate density housing at the periphery. This creates traffic nightmares since someone living in the suburbs will drive many more miles to work than their urban living coworker. It also sets up a type of development that is difficult to serve with mass transit because of the low density quality of suburban developments.

Don't see how this exposes Houston's "mistakes".

Could it be that "uncontrolled growth of suburban style developments" really means that some lucky person or group favored by the contributor gets to control other people who want to live in a certain way, if this "uncontrolled" situation is to be curtailed? And this lucky group, in control as of course they should be, assure us that they know what is "unsustainable" so that we will be OK with them dictating to us what not to do with our land?

I guess I can look forward, that we will be so much better off after being educated into the precise definition of "unsustainable" as these noble folks know it to be. I'm sure these folks also want to tell developers how tall buildings in Green Hills and midtown are allowed to be. So we get that high density, the solution to the low density, is really not good either. But the important thing is that we all appreciate their thinking on this too.

And I'll be on the lookout for articles in Fodor's or other places mentioning Atlanta or Houston as being "known for uncontrolled growth of suburban style developments".