Joey Garrison

USA Today Network - Tennessee

Gallatin Pike in East Nashville is a mix of grit and signs of growth — where pawn shops, auto repair garages and discount tobacco stores operate next to hip restaurants and bars.

Next in its evolution: perhaps the city’s first stretch of light rail.

Under a plan that Mayor Megan Barry announced Wednesday she’s pursuing, Nashvillians would one day be able to hop aboard electric trains on Gallatin Pike in the morning and whiz by cars backed up on Interstate 65 and Ellington Parkway en route to downtown.

Her vision is for Gallatin Pike — which extends from downtown as Main Street through East Nashville, Madison and Rivergate — to eventually be the first of five corridors with rail. Others are Murfreesboro Pike, Charlotte Pike, Nolensville Pike and the Northwest Corridors, which would stretch from North Nashville to Clarksville.

With only preliminary design work complete, details of the Gallatin Pike project aren’t fleshed out. But Nashville’s nMotion 25-year transportation strategic plan, adopted last year, and the Nashville Area MPO’s Northeast Corridor Mobility Study from 2011 paint a broad picture of what the project could look like — and how it might operate.

Fast, direct and frequent service

Light rail refers to a fast, urban rail service that runs on dedicated rights of way separate from vehicular lanes. It typically uses one to three cars. Features include level boarding for passengers, off-board fare payment and traffic signal prioritization.

Stations where passengers board light rail are typically spread out further apart (every one-half mile or every one mile) than other local transit services, according to an nMotion policy paper, and service is usually more frequent, making stops every 10 minutes or faster. Light rail relies on direct routes.

Metro Transit Authority CEO Steve Bland said he would like to build all five rail lines simultaneously, if that were possible, but said that’s “neither affordable nor practical.” The biggest reason why Gallatin Pike was picked: The corridor, which includes a BRT Lite route, boasts the highest bus ridership in Nashville.

From January through March, MTA bus passengers took 274,569 trips on the Gallatin Pike corridor, followed by Murfreesboro Pike at 240,047 and Nolensville Pike at 166,853.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” Bland said. “There are compelling reasons for any of the corridors, but for a number of reasons Gallatin certainly makes sense.”

Nashville’s nMotion plan outlines a $5.97 billion regional transit system over 25 years, with light rail being just one component of a larger Middle Tennessee network.

Cities that have built light rail lines since 2000 include Charlotte, N.C.; St. Louis; Denver; Dallas; Salt Lake City; and Portland, Ore.

In most cities, light rail service spans throughout much of the day. The nMotion report suggests that light rail on the five corridors, including Gallatin Pike, run from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. Light rail trains are usually around 80 to 90 feet long and carry about 150 to 220 people each, the same report says.

Bland said that light rail would likely run down the middle of Gallatin Pike on a platform, rather than the sides, giving pedestrians an easier ability to cross the street.

When compared to other modes of transit like bus rapid transit, which operates on wheels, he said he believes light rail has greater potential to spur new development.

One planning consideration for Gallatin Pike: its varying widths. The corridor is wider on Main Street than it is near East Nashville High School before the road widens again as it heads toward Briley Parkway.

Length of route a key question

During her State of Metro speech Wednesday, Barry framed transit as a necessary step to become a 21st-century city.

“Nashville cannot wait any longer to embrace our future," she said.

She acknowledged there will be some hiccups, headaches and arguments but said, "We've always embraced the future, and it's time to do that again."

Barry said Gallatin Pike’s high bus ridership, potential for transit-oriented development, surrounding sidewalk network and neighborhood support for mass transit make it the ideal road for the first light rail line in Nashville.

How long the light rail extends on Gallatin Pike would help determine cost. Barry told reporters that an exact route hasn’t been decided.

Read more:

Mayor Barry commits to light rail on Gallatin Pike, kicks off public vote for funding transit

If a $6 billion transit system is built, will Middle Tennesseans ride?

Metro recommends $6 billion transit plan for Nashville region

Nashville debt limit referendum poses threat to transit funding hopes

Light rail lines typically extend for longer stretches, more than 15 miles, compared to streets cars, which run for about two or three miles.

The nMotion plan arrived at rough cost estimates by attributing around $70 million per mile. That assumption would mean the Gallatin Pike project's price tag would be around $490 million if light rail were extended seven miles from downtown’s Music City Central to Briley Parkway. If it were to go further to Rivergate, about 11.5 miles from downtown, the cost would be more than $800 million.

The Nashville Metropolitan Planning Organization's Northeast Corridor Mobility Study in 2011 estimated that building light rail from downtown all the way to Gallatin, which stretches 30 miles from downtown, would cost $1.9 billion. But those projections were made in 2010, meaning it is likely more today.

The 30-mile Gallatin Pike light rail route identified in the Northeast Corridor Mobility Study shows 13 potential stations beginning at Music City Central. Others include stations at Cleveland Street, Trinity Lane, Dickerson/Skyline, Old Hickory Boulevard and Confederate Drive.

Gallatin Pike seen as receptive to new transit

Barry's focus on Gallatin Pike comes more than two years after then-Mayor Karl Dean retreated on plans for his bus rapid transit project called the Amp, which was proposed for Broadway and West End Avenue but also would have extended into East Nashville.

Although Amp planning took place for Main Street, Metro would not be able to adopt the same planning and footprint for light rail. That’s because light rail will require additional right of way, whereas Dean’s BRT was designed on existing right of way.

► Related: Nashville MTA: Amp is dead

► Related: Amp funding officially comes to a stop

The Amp faced a backlash in affluent parts of West Nashville, but Gallatin Pike crosses working-class neighborhoods that have become hotbeds of gentrification.

Of the 20,867 residents who live one-half mile from Gallatin Pike, 5,075 live below the poverty line. That’s a poverty rate of 24.3 percent, which is above Davidson County’s 18.2 percent poverty rate.

East Nashvillians were generally more receptive of the Amp than their West Nashville counterparts when it was debated. During the nMotion planning process, East Nashvillians also expressed support for transit.

Councilman Anthony Davis, who represents parts of Inglewood, said the mayor was wise to choose Gallatin Pike, which he said has the right ingredients for light rail to work. He said the impact there would be huge.

"The people want it. I'm sure of that," Davis said. "We have a lot of state employees. We have a lot of Metro employees. We have a lot of people who work downtown. We've got a lot of people that are progressive and transit advocates in East Nashville."

Transit funding public vote will be key

Local transportation officials say Gallatin Pike has increased in congestion in recent years, and they project it to continue.

According to the Nashville Area MPO, traffic volumes along Gallatin Pike increased 4.5 percent between 2010 and 2015. If that trend continues, traffic volumes will increase another 20.8 percent between 2020 and 2030.

The Northeast Corridor Mobility Study recommended that Nashville begin with bus rapid transit — which lacks dedicated rail — on Gallatin Pike before later upgrading to light rail. The plan then was to use a line in Denver as a model.

But nMotion, recognizing a higher demand for transit along Gallatin Pike, recommended light rail.

The fate of light rail will likely rest on the outcome of a referendum for public funding for transit that Barry intends to get on the ballot in 2018. Its passage would set aside dedicated, recurring funding for transit. Barry has not identified which tax revenue streams she plans to target.

Other cities have taken a similar path to fund light rail.

Denver, where Nashville commonly looks to for comparisons, has pumped $5.3 billion into its light rail system since 1994. Efforts were boosted by a 0.4 percent increase in the sales tax approved by voters in 2004. Today, the Regional Transportation District operates six light rail lines that stretch a total of 47 miles with 46 stations and daily weekday ridership of 87,000 passengers.

In Charlotte, N.C., the city's 9.6-mile LYNX light rail line, which carries 15,800 passengers each workday, was kicked off by passage of a referendum in 1998.

Barry’s newly proposed 2017-18 Metro operating budget has set funding aside for further nMotion planning.

In addition, MTA's board recently hired HDR Engineering to perform more extensive corridor design work on Gallatin Pike. Bland said it will identify site challenges and take a more granular look at a project that will require land acquisition.

As part of that planning, more community input is expected.

"Where nMotion was kind of a general, regionwide, 30,000-foot look, this (will) get to the street level and block level to see what the impacts are," Bland said.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.