Nashville's promise for a greener transportation future

[M II A II R II K]

Nashville's promise for a greener transportation future


February 15, 2012

By Kaid Benfield

Read More: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kb...r_a_green.html

Website: http://www.nashvillempo.org/plans_programs/rtp/

The regional planning authority for the Nashville, Tennessee metropolitan area has embarked on a new philosophy to put the notoriously sprawling region on a less polluting and less consumptive path, anchored by walkable neighborhoods, public transportation, and maximizing the efficiency of current roadways. Meeting the laudable goal of shaping a more sustainable region will not be easy: in 2001, the Nashville metro area was cited as the nation’s most spread-out – the area with the fewest number of residents per square mile – in a review of 271 of our largest metro areas. If Nashville’s land use challenge is daunting, its transportation challenges – in large part created by the predominance of sprawl – are similarly formidable.

- Under federal transportation law, responsibility for planning transportation investments assisted by federal funds – which includes most new or expanded transit service and just about all roads other than those that are purely local – is assigned to multi-county (and in a few border areas multi-state) metropolitan planning organizations. For the Middle Tennessee area including and surrounding Nashville, the state’s largest city, it is the Nashville MPO that plans how transportation dollars will be spent, and what new facilities, if any, will be built. In the US, this is as close to a true regional growth planning framework as we usually have.

Particularly striking are the plan’s “major objectives,” which include the following:

• Adopt a “fix-it-first” approach that emphasizes maintenance and improvement of existing facilities (in other words, ensure that current roads are repaired and maintained before building new ones).

• Shift investment strategies toward a diversity of transportation modes, rather than focusing solely on roadway capacity.

• Encourage the development of context-sensitive solutions “to ensure that community values are not sacrificed for a mobility improvement.”

• Increase efforts to improve transportation corridors so they contribute to sense of place.

• Invest in walkable communities that offer citizens the ability to access their needs without relying on automobiles.

• Invest in a modern regional transit system.

• Work to ensure that Middle Tennessee is considered in plans for high-speed intercity rail service.

Even better, the plan adopts a 100-point scoring system with which to evaluate new transportation proposals. The evaluation criteria include nine categories, and the three that are given the most weight (15 points each), relate directly to sustainability:

• System preservation and enhancement (including fix-it-first and context-sensitive approaches)

• The Gulch, in Nashville (by: Matthew Williams, The City Paper)“Quality growth, sustainable development, and economic prosperity” (including whether the project supports infill and/or redevelopment within existing developed areas, is located near mixed-use and high-density areas [such as

• The Gulch, Nashville’s first LEED-ND-certified development], corrects stormwater drainage concerns, and is located near existing jobs)

• Multi-modal options (such as transit service, bicycle facilities, and pedestrian improvements and amenities)

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[ltsmotorsport]

This is great news and a positive step for regional planning in Nashville. Now let's hope some of the land use policies change along with the transportation priorities.