The Peirce Reports: Article III – “Commuter Rail: A Timely U-Turn”

Commuter Rail: A Timely U-Turn

By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson, 1999

Even as it hurtles toward Atlanta-style gridlock, the Nashville region has a dramatic opportunity to execute a smart U-turn.

Look across America’s regions and you’ll find it difficult to find any other with as ideal a set of rail development options — commuter rail and light rail combined — as Nashville and Middle Tennessee today.

Why? Most regions have an existing old railroad line, maybe two, that could be converted to commuter travel. But the lines rarely run where today’s travel pressure is.

History has left Nashville with a critical group of rail corridors — five in all — that actually parallel major interstates and development corridors. They connect the heavy travel points of the metropolitan region.

Here’s the formula: Using existing tracks, put the commuter lines (total of 137 miles) into service as soon as feasible (a first leg by 2001, we’re told). Simultaneously, get to work on a light rail line that connects to the commuter rail and produces a needed circulation system from downtown to West End (four miles). Result: a sprawl-proof alternative transportation system.

What would that 141-mile system cost?

We added up all the pieces of capital expenditure — to construct stations, acquire equipment, lay down rail lines where they’re missing — and came up with these figures:

• The five commuter rail lines would cost $266 million. The light rail line would cost $76 million. The total: $342 million.

Does that sound like a lot? Well, Minneapolis-St. Paul is getting ready to spend $600 million on a single 13-mile light rail line. St. Louis paid $725 million to construct its highly successful 36-mile MetroLink system. The price tag for Dallas’ 20-mile light rail starter system was $849 million.

And let’s be honest. Even by the Nashville region’s own standards, a $342 million capital bill for a major transportation system is modest.

Compare the monies proposed to build State Route 840: the southern loop will cost $455 million ($270 million already spent or obligated) and the northern loop $765 million. That’s a $1.2 billion total.
Some significant stretches of 840 have been built — basically the I-40 to I-24 leg. But there’s ferocious controversy over the remaining southern leg. And no one expects the northern arc to be built anytime soon.
Still, the wizards at the Tennessee Department of Transportation are said to have parked sufficient funds to build all of 840, not even asking for federal help.

For a fraction of what’s left in the 840 kitty, Nashville’s entire regional rail system could be jump-started, paid for with cash.

So let’s ask: Is a rail system for the Nashville region worth it?

Some will say: This is a Southern city; folks love their cars; we’re not ready for alternatives. In one respect, they’re right. The auto is surely a wonderful invention. It obeys the driver’s schedule. It goes almost anywhere. It’s comfortable, private, usually safe. It’s almost sure to be our major mode of transportation — in Nashville, across America, in most parts of the world — for generations to come.

So why not just keep adding roads and widening the ones we have?

The answer won’t be popular. But it’s virtually indisputable: Traffic congestion is getting worse and it’s a disease for which there is no cure. In recent decades, the number of cars per family, plus total vehicle miles driven, have far outstripped increases in the U.S. population.

Part of the reason has been the entry of women into the work force. But most of it has been because people are moving farther away from their jobs and other destinations, and are driving more miles to get there.
And there’s another problem. Even if TDOT is out there widening lanes and irritating people with all the construction delays, rarely is the result less congestion. New roads, new lanes seem to fill up, magically, almost overnight. Drivers who had been using less traveled roads or driving during non-peak hours to avoid the crunch rush in to fill all the space available.

Suburban sprawl is another reason. When roads get built or widened to less developed outer suburbs, it’s a sign to the home building industry — here’s your next market area. Hot real estate markets develop. Once-quiet fields, pastures, forest lands suddenly become subdivision target areas. Consumers buy and move out. Net result: Roads end up more clogged than ever.

Even some of the country’s best thinkers on transportation are now saying it’s hopeless. “Traffic congestion is a problem that cannot be solved,” says Anthony Downs, of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Get yourself an air-conditioned car with a stereo radio, tape deck, phone, fax machine, portable computer, bar, and microwave oven, and commute with someone you really like.”

So, if ever-worsening congestion is inevitable, what’s the Nashville region to do?

The answer has to be some choice in transportation.
That doesn’t mean forsaking autos.

It does mean moving, as quickly as possible, to get an alternative, regionwide public transportation system rolling.

Fortunately, there’s already a plan and a timetable for the public to inspect. Of the six rail corridors now fanning out from the center of the region, transit officials have pegged five as feasible commuter rail lines.

Some of the lines are designated for the fastest-track treatment, others for later in the decade:

• Wilson County: Mt. Juliet to Nashville by 2001, Lebanon connected by 2002.
• Sumner County: Hendersonville by 2002, Gallatin by 2003.
• Rutherford County: Smyrna by 2004, Murfreesboro by 2006.
• Williamson County: Brentwood and Franklin by 2006.
• Cheatham: Kingston Springs in 2009 (preceded by connection to Bellevue, Davidson County, in 2007)

The sixth existing line, for which the market wasn’t considered strong enough to support service, goes northwest to Clarksville in Montgomery County.

How much service would there be? The present plan would be for three or four trains each way, morning and afternoon, on each line. More trains would be added if ridership — initially projected at 13,715 passengers a day — were to justify it. Service could be increased to meet additional demand when there is construction on parallel freeways.

All these details are encompassed in a technically proficient and extraordinarily thorough study completed last winter by transportation experts R.L. Banks & Associates. The authorization to do it came from the five-county Metropolitan Planning Organization special commuter rail task force.

So why would any commuter consider switching from the convenience of his or her private car to rail?

For starters, to save money. The Greater Nashville Chamber of Commerce, in its recent Beyond Gridlock report, estimated some big savings for the average commuter. There’d be one new outlay: fares of $3 or so each way (including free transfers to light rail or bus service). Presuming that our new train traveler keeps the car, makes the payments, maintains and insures the vehicle, he or she would save $2,850 a year.
How? In avoided expenses for gasoline, downtown parking and vehicle maintenance.

Second reason: the quality of the ride. A service that provides pleasant stations, reliable schedules, decent seats, clean rail cars that are warm in winter and cool in the summer, can attract people who don’t need to save money at all.

Think of what you can do while on the train: Use your cell phone. Read the newspaper. Read a memo before an important meeting. Drink a hot cup of coffee. Chew on a bagel in peace. Go, if you must, to the bathroom (try that on the interstate!). Daydream without risking an auto crash. And, yes, catch up on e-mails.

The commuter train from Oceanside, Calif., to San Diego offers that very feature. In today’s world, public transit with electric and telephone outlets is an easy trick to achieve.

Take the riders of the extraordinarily popular (and currently expanding) Metra system, providing rail service from Chicago’s western suburbs to the downtown Loop. These people scarcely resemble the stereotypical transit rider, who takes public transportation only because he has no other choice.

They do have choices. In a 1995 survey, 67% of these Metra riders had college degrees. Twenty-five percent had household incomes exceeding $100,000; only 6% had incomes less than $25,000. Eighty-six percent told surveyors they had an auto available for their trips, if they would choose to drive.

These commuters ride the rails to work because it’s easier on both their psyches and their pocketbooks. Plus, there’s no commuter rail equivalent of road rage.

Third reason: Assuming downtown Nashville is your destination, you can expect real convenience at the downtown stops: Riverfront Park and the Demonbreun side of Union Station. A special shuttle bus fleet is part of the official commuter rail plan.

Service for the last-mile, to the office door or close by, actually provides an opportunity for Nashville to do something truly inventive. The challenge is how to get hundreds of passengers onto and off buses that in many instances will be traveling just a few blocks to get them to their destinations. The transfers have to be rapid to win acceptance.

So why not consider a creative design? Curitiba, Brazil, has a fleet of buses that don’t use conventional doors. Instead, the entire side of the bus opens, letting all the passengers board or disembark at once. Result: the fastest boardings and passenger exits on the planet.

If Nashville thinks it’s too big a risk to consider a bus design never before tried in the United States, it might take a look down the road at Chattanooga. When Chattanooga looked for electric buses, it couldn’t find them. So what did it do? It had the daring to start a new company that’s now the world’s largest electric bus maker.

Next => Article IV: “Stepping Up to Stop the Sprawl”

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