An All-Access Pass to Sidewalks, Signals, Service and Safety in Nashville
It’s not a secret – Nashville’s traffic is rough. A Forbes report released in early 2024 declared that Nashville has the worst commute in the nation. For more than a decade, we’ve been talking about how we need to do something. In that time, Nashville’s built more than 70 transportation plans, and 66,000 times Nashvillians told us what they wanted for their neighborhood and their commute. Mayor Freddie O’Connell campaigned on securing dedicated funding for transportation improvements, and in April of 2024, released a plan designed to make the maximum amount of improvements for the least cost.
In November, Nashvillians approved the plan, clearing the way for the city to dedicated tax revenue to transportation improvements for the first time in the city’s history.
The core tenets of Choose How You Move are:
- 86 miles of new sidewalk
- Smart traffic signals that read traffic for 2/3 of our city’s intersections
- 24/7/365 transit service for the first time in Nashville’s history with better frequency and more crosstown and local routes
- Improvements to the roads and streets that consistently contribute to our serious and fatal accidents
- The chance to bring in $1.4 billion in federal matching funds for which the city was previously not competitive
Transportation Planning in Nashville
The need to invest in a modern, multimodal (meaning by driving, walking, riding transit, or bicycling) transportation system is not new to Nashville. In fact, the city has spent most of this century analyzing how to improve its transportation systems. Now, Mayor O’Connell is focusing on implementation.
There are over 70 neighborhood, community, citywide, and regional plans created over the last 15 years that support expanded and enhanced transportation and mobility infrastructure. The topics of these plans are diverse, oftentimes outlining a strategy that links our neighborhoods as they grow and change to improved multimodal transportation by addressing sidewalks, bikeways, bus service, public safety, streetlights, technology, sustainability, public health, open space, recreation, aging populations, and much more. Links to several of the more significant and foundational citywide and regional plans follow.
NashvilleNext established a community-oriented vision for future growth linked to multimodal transportation options, including high-capacity transit along several major corridors, and linking to centers throughout the county. This established updated community plans for all of Davidson County and re-oriented transportation around a multimodal vision for complete streets with Access Nashville: 2040 Major and Collector Street Plan (2015).
nMotion builds on NashvilleNext to outline a more robust local and regional WeGo Public Transit system. It identified three scenarios with a recommended plan outlining light rails on several major corridors, rapid bus transit, and improved bus frequency. A version of this plan was carried forward in 2018 for implementation to voters and was not funded. Two scenarios evaluated during the development of nMotion outline improvements to essential transportation infrastructure such as sidewalks, signals, and improved transit frequency with hubs across the county. (2016/2018 vote)
WalknBike Plan is a blueprint for sidewalks and bikeways linking neighborhoods to transit to make Nashville safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Projects are prioritized based on safety of people walking and biking, connectivity to existing networks, equity and presence of vulnerable communities, and access to transit. (2017/2022)
Vision Zero Action Plan orients around the safety goal of achieving no fatalities on Nashville’s streets with investments in transportation safety, improvements by identifying high crash corridors, and focusing on proven strategies that reduce fatalities and injuries. (2022)
Connect Downtown aims to improve mobility and address traffic congestion in the downtown core by identifying projects, programs, and policies to help better manage increasing congestion and make it easier for people to get around by all modes of transportation. (2024 draft)
Middle Tennessee Connected was adopted by mayors and transportation officials as the Regional Transportation Plan for the seven-county area, setting forth collective transportation goals for city and county governments, transit agencies, and TDOT for the Middle Tennessee region (2021).
Given a strong foundation in planning and clear recommendations from Mayor O’Connell’s How Nashville Moves transition committee, Choose How You Move draws upon these plans to develop a proposed project list with dedicated funding.