Tennessee lawmakers have finalized a deal approving a bus rapid transit project, which the Senate originally attempted to block.2

The deal will allow Nashville's AMP bus rapid transit project to proceed, but with greater oversight from the state's General Assembly, according to The Tennessean. The deal, brokered Thursday by a conference committee of House and Senate lawmakers, allows BRT projects to use separate lanes, but such projects will require Assembly approval even if they don't use state funding.

The Amp, proposed by Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, is a $174 million BRT system that would cover a 7.1-mile route and serve rapidly growing neighborhoods across the city. There's a more detailed summary of the project over at The Tennessean. Thursday's deal was needed because the Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill effectively banning construction of bus rapid transit in two counties, one of which includes Nashville1, while the House approved a measure that merely required the state's transportation commissioner to approve such projects.2

Although BRT has been shown to revitalize economies and reduce congestion, opponents of the Amp voiced concerns about the safety of unloading bus passengers along roadways and whether private land would be used to build dedicated bus lanes. Opponents also decried the loss of parking and said the project would increase traffic congestion.

After the vote, Amp opponents revealed that the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, founded with the support of brothers Charles and David Koch, had lobbied in favor of the bus ban.

The Senate legislation was startlingly specific: Senate Bill 2243 forbade "constructing, maintaining or operating any bus rapid transit system." Because of the unusual way Tennessee subdivides county governments, the bill applies only to BRT systems in two counties–Davidson, where Nashville is located, and Moore, which happens to be home to the Jack Daniels distillery. It also forbade buses from "loading or discharging passengers at any point within the boundary lines of a state highway or state highway right-of-way not adjacent to the right-hand, lateral curb line." The House struck that provision and sent to the Senate revised legislation, which would require special approval from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and local government bodies.

Thursday's agreement kills the Senate bill and, at the moment, allows the Amp to proceed.

"The good news is that the legislation to stop the Amp did not succeed," the mayor said in a statement, according to The Tennessean. "The new bill allows us to keep moving forward with the Amp, and that is what we're going to do. We will work in close partnership with our new Citizens Advisory Committee, and we are committed to designing the best possible transit system for our city."

The Senate's effort was a remarkably hard line. Normally, the easiest way to kill a public transit project is to pull its funding. Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii and Utah all forbid state funding for public transit systems, for instance, but even that isn't foolproof: Utah's taken on some major commuter rail expansions lately, and Phoenix uses county tax revenues to pay for its transit system.

Voters in Arlington, Texas famously voted against public transit funding for decades, and an acrimonious debate in Cincinnati almost derailed a streetcar project, but both those cities now have service.

A formal ban on BRT is about the only way that Tennessee could ensure that the Amp didn't get built as intended. Still, opponents did get Dean's attention, and he has ordered a study that would redesign the system to avoid using dedicated lanes (PDF).

1CORRECTION 3:50 p.m. Eastern 04.16.14: An earlier version of this story overstated the scope of the ban; it applies only to mass transit projects in counties with metropolitan governments, specifically Davidson and Moore counties.

2UPDATE 6:30 p.m. Eastern 04.17.14: This story has been clarified to make clear that it was the Senate that attempted to curtail BRT, and updated to include Thursday's conference committee deal that will allow the project to proceed.