NASHVILLE, Tenn. (OSBORNE) -- A new study suggests Nashville commuters will soon encounter a whole new level of gridlock if the city can’t get a handle on downtown traffic.
The Nashville Business Journal recently compiled the traffic data generated by some of the city’s largest development projects, including the Amazon facility, Asurion’s new HQ, offices for Alliance/Berntein, and the HCA relocation.
Reporter Meg Garner says those projects and a few others could generate more than 200,000 new, daily vehicle trips into the urban core within two years.
“If you think about kind of the 24-40 split just southeast of downtown, that number is a little bit more than what that spot sees every day.”
Garner says to make matters worse, the recent revolving door at the mayor’s office means the city likel y won’t be ready to offer a unified response anytime soon. She quotes new Mayor John Cooper saying it will be at least a year before his team can pull a traffic plan together.
The emphatic rejection by Nashville voters of former Mayor Megan Barry’s proposed $5 billion transit plan still reverberates loudly around City Hall. But Meg Garner says most stakeholders agree Nashville’s traffic problem can’t be solved without mass transit being some part of the solution.
“I think people realize that - as this story demonstrates - growth is coming whether they want it or not, so figuring out how to help that growth be absorbed in a way that’s not too disruptive.”
Use this link to review Garner’s complete Nashville Business Journal report, including an interactive map.