Nashville, the second least walkable city in the US. (Memphis: real estate, to rent)

[Adric]

yep it's a light rail. The majority of it is above ground. It only goes underground in parts of downtown. When I lived in Atlanta me and friends used to joke that MARTA stood for "Man, Atlanta's Rapid Transit (is) Awful". They've been thinking about expanding it for years but like the MTA in Nashville, they just end up "studying" it to death and nothing ever gets done.

Honestly, I think nothing gets done here because the people don't put enough pressure on the govt. People want it but on 3 conditions: they don't have to get up of their coutch to get it, they don't have to pay taxes for it, and it doesn't go through their backyard.

[MaccabeeMaven]

Personally, I can't believe Phoenix didn't make the list. With such intense heat 9 months out of the year, coupled with massive urban/suburban sprawl, Phoenix is the least walkable place I've ever lived. Nashville has so much going for it, according to all of my friends that live there.

[kingchef]

Originally Posted by MaccabeeMaven

Personally, I can't believe Phoenix didn't make the list. With such intense heat 9 months out of the year, coupled with massive urban/suburban sprawl, Phoenix is the least walkable place I've ever lived. Nashville has so much going for it, according to all of my friends that live there.

nashville, itself, is just to small for such a system. it will be cost prohibitive. planning might have encouraged it several years back; however, not at this time. the area is just too rural to connect the towns together---county to county. driving is the way to go for now. forget tax hikes. and, sensible and responsible people, hopefully including elected officials, are not concerned w/ superflous issues such as looking cool riding on a train going nowhere, when those individuals must write out the huge check for the ill-conceived dream.

[user123455]

Does anyone actually walk in L.A. ?

[scarletneon]

Originally Posted by kingchef

nashville, itself, is just to small for such a system. it will be cost prohibitive. planning might have encouraged it several years back; however, not at this time. the area is just too rural to connect the towns together---county to county. driving is the way to go for now. forget tax hikes. and, sensible and responsible people, hopefully including elected officials, are not concerned w/ superflous issues such as looking cool riding on a train going nowhere, when those individuals must write out the huge check for the ill-conceived dream.

so sitting in traffic for an hour or more is preferable? there's plenty of places that could be connected in the area by rail... besides Lebanon, which has the Star line, there's definitely Murfreesboro, Franklin/Brentwood, Clarksville, Hendersonville and even Spring Hill/Columbia which could benefit from rail transit. Even potentially Bowling Green, Jackson, and Huntsville could be connected in a rail network, creating a faster and less stressful commute. There would also be the opportunity for more thoughtful and walkable development in the towns that would be connected by rail, rather than the hemorrhaging sprawl that's occurring now.

rail transit is generally more reliable than cars, since you never know what idiot is going to wreck their car, blocking traffic and making you late. you can also spend your time on the train reading, relaxing and getting your work done.

but, it seems like people don't want to thin outside the box. It's unfortunate you can't even get to Nashville by Amtrak either.

[scarletneon]

Originally Posted by Adric

yep it's a light rail. The majority of it is above ground. It only goes underground in parts of downtown. When I lived in Atlanta me and friends used to joke that MARTA stood for "Man, Atlanta's Rapid Transit (is) Awful". They've been thinking about expanding it for years but like the MTA in Nashville, they just end up "studying" it to death and nothing ever gets done.

Honestly, I think nothing gets done here because the people don't put enough pressure on the govt. People want it but on 3 conditions: they don't have to get up of their coutch to get it, they don't have to pay taxes for it, and it doesn't go through their backyard.

From what i've read, certain suburban communities are staunchly against MARTA expanding into their areas because of the "bad element" it might bring to their communities.

[kingchef]

Originally Posted by supernerdgirl

so sitting in traffic for an hour or more is preferable? there's plenty of places that could be connected in the area by rail... besides Lebanon, which has the Star line, there's definitely Murfreesboro, Franklin/Brentwood, Clarksville, Hendersonville and even Spring Hill/Columbia which could benefit from rail transit. Even potentially Bowling Green, Jackson, and Huntsville could be connected in a rail network, creating a faster and less stressful commute. There would also be the opportunity for more thoughtful and walkable development in the towns that would be connected by rail, rather than the hemorrhaging sprawl that's occurring now.

rail transit is generally more reliable than cars, since you never know what idiot is going to wreck their car, blocking traffic and making you late. you can also spend your time on the train reading, relaxing and getting your work done.

but, it seems like people don't want to thin outside the box. It's unfortunate you can't even get to Nashville by Amtrak either.

sitting in traffic is definitely not something i relish, in fact it is disheartening. while i agree about murfreesboro, franklin, and perhaps, hendersonville, i just cannot see the stretches to columbia, clarksville, jackson, huntsville, and bowling green. you, in order to connect these perimeter/stops cities, are talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. nashville might benefit by having some incoming mid/high-level management, maybe, but, on the other hand, what could these other cities expect in return? a few would, perhaps, prosper from the employment opportunities in nashville. as for the sprawl, it has already occurred. very little, if anything, can be done about it at this point. too, clarksville is the fastest growing metropolitan area in tn. cities compete more now than ever before in history. it is not likely that clarksville would want to support any programs which ultimately took away potential talent in clarksville-montgomery county. the same might be said for murfreesboro. will it keep its independence as a city or will it begin to be seen as nothing but a bedroom community of nashville. i concede that murfreesboro would stand to benefit greatly from a rail system. again, much more of a stretch when columbia-maury county is put in the pot. to conclude, i, too, think it is ridiculous for amtrak not to service nashville directly. it seems that tennesseans could get a line from memphis, to nashville, knoxville, and on to bristol. i know one who would be a regular. in short, most cities---particularly in the souteast---are very slow, if not outright against, train transportation. think about how tourism could be boosted by offering a rail and trains offering stops from one end of the state to the other. tie the idea into the smokey mountain and it could be a goldmine---i'm convinced of that.

[scarletneon]

Originally Posted by kingchef

sitting in traffic is definitely not something i relish, in fact it is disheartening. while i agree about murfreesboro, franklin, and perhaps, hendersonville, i just cannot see the stretches to columbia, clarksville, jackson, huntsville, and bowling green. you, in order to connect these perimeter/stops cities, are talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. nashville might benefit by having some incoming mid/high-level management, maybe, but, on the other hand, what could these other cities expect in return? a few would, perhaps, prosper from the employment opportunities in nashville. as for the sprawl, it has already occurred. very little, if anything, can be done about it at this point. too, clarksville is the fastest growing metropolitan area in tn. cities compete more now than ever before in history. it is not likely that clarksville would want to support any programs which ultimately took away potential talent in clarksville-montgomery county. the same might be said for murfreesboro. will it keep its independence as a city or will it begin to be seen as nothing but a bedroom community of nashville. i concede that murfreesboro would stand to benefit greatly from a rail system. again, much more of a stretch when columbia-maury county is put in the pot. to conclude, i, too, think it is ridiculous for amtrak not to service nashville directly. it seems that tennesseans could get a line from memphis, to nashville, knoxville, and on to bristol. i know one who would be a regular. in short, most cities---particularly in the souteast---are very slow, if not outright against, train transportation. think about how tourism could be boosted by offering a rail and trains offering stops from one end of the state to the other. tie the idea into the smokey mountain and it could be a goldmine---i'm convinced of that.

The outer ring cities could be connected if the project included higher speed rails. Huntsville could be a stretch, requiring the higher speeds, but Bowling Green is the same distance from Nashville as Kenosha, WI is from Chicago, and there is a commuter rail between the two cities. As far as Columbia, most of the commuter rails up here go the same distance as the distance between Columbia and Nashville.

A viable idea that worked for Chicago (at least within the city, I'm not sure how it could be accomplished in suburban areas) was constructing rail in the median of the interstates. instead of making the highways 16 lanes wide, they could use that money to construct rail - or even express bus lanes (separated from the rest of course)

yes, i realize this is a dream that will never happen, but the last thing I want to see is the entire middle section of Tennessee connected by automobile sprawl, which is the direction it is headed.

[kingchef]

Originally Posted by supernerdgirl

The outer ring cities could be connected if the project included higher speed rails. Huntsville could be a stretch, requiring the higher speeds, but Bowling Green is the same distance from Nashville as Kenosha, WI is from Chicago, and there is a commuter rail between the two cities. As far as Columbia, most of the commuter rails up here go the same distance as the distance between Columbia and Nashville.

A viable idea that worked for Chicago (at least within the city, I'm not sure how it could be accomplished in suburban areas) was constructing rail in the median of the interstates. instead of making the highways 16 lanes wide, they could use that money to construct rail - or even express bus lanes (separated from the rest of course)

yes, i realize this is a dream that will never happen, but the last thing I want to see is the entire middle section of Tennessee connected by automobile sprawl, which is the direction it is headed.

i agree w/ much of what you advance in your argument. as a native of chicago, observing the population in tn leads me to conclude that the problem for nashville as a terminus/origin is the problem of ridership. pershaps there could be a mixed train(s) carrying both tourists and workers. i was working on a plan for trains about six weeks ago, and my conclusion centered on your idea of putting the rails on existing land between the I-40 corridor. i do not know how the public domain issue federal vs state, etc. would work out. may be no problem. i believe most things can be done if we push the right politicians. i do not think that most tennesseans realize the strong political influence/power tn has in washington.

[user123455]

I think that Nashville being rated as second least walkable city is actually a good thing.... let me explain !
It seems like there are many areas around Nashville that don't have sidewalks and I think the reason is because the density of housing is very low so that it would be too expensive to build sidewalks everywhere like in other cities. Because the density is so low here, the cost per household would be very high. So this is a good thing because it indicates that Nashville is one of the least crowded cities in the US.