opinion

Why I will vote for Mayor Barry's transit plan

The new year ahead is shaping up to be a time of big decisions for voters — new elections to Congress and the legislature, weighty questions of policy affecting the livability of our city.

The midterm elections, including selection of a new governor and U.S. senator for Tennessee, will generate the biggest turnout in the August primaries and November general.

Even sooner, on May 1, along with elections to county offices and judgeships, there will be a significant local vote on transit upgrades for Nashville. It is hard to overstate how important this one is.

Mayor Megan Barry’s initiative for better transit calls for a new array of light rail lines, sophisticated construction downtown to connect them, and upgrades to current bus routes, service and equipment. It’s an exciting — and essential — vision for the future. To my eye, it will be a generational choice for our city and region.

► Read More: The stakes in Nashville's transit future: getting left behind

The population in the Nashville region is predicted to swell in the next decade by a million more people. How do we prepare for that?

One way is to make certain we will all be able to move around and get to our jobs, schools, churches and homes. Transit is not the only growth issue we face, but livability is fundamental. Key to that is our mobility within a rising urban mecca.

Voting smartly in May involves anticipating all the opposition canards that will come from people who want Nashville to stand still.

Smarter cars?

Watch for the claim that exotic “self-driving cars” will be a better solution than light rail. No, they won’t. Gridlock is not caused by drivers unable to operate their own vehicles, but by the traffic jams constantly in front of us with too many one-passenger autos.

One bus does the work of 40 cars, and one set of connected light rail cars can replace 400 cars. The transit service we have needs to be faster, more reliable, more inviting.

Cost is too high?

The proposed system will be expensive, yes, but how we can afford it also has been thought through. It will all take a steadfast vision to implement over many years.

We are not Atlanta. We are not Chicago. We are Nashville, a city that in my lifetime has striven to be wise about our future and what’s involved in making Nashville the best it can be.

Do out-of-town 'think tanks' know better than you?

We will hear from out-of-state interest groups and their local minions who want to do our thinking for us. In my experience, some of these shops are better at tanking than thinking.

A few naysayers have emerged already. They remind me of the failed effort by out-of-towners in 2008-09 to foist the “English only” regime on us. We had to organize to beat them back, and we did.

Any out-of-town opposition to better transit for Nashville will be less about what we who live here need and more about the meddlers who want to protect us from ourselves. No, thanks.

More detail, please?

First, the mayor’s transit plan has not been sprung upon us, out of the blue. This public conversation began at least two years ago, long before the first renderings were painted.

The final details of design, engineering and program can only be finished after voters authorize the deeper planning work first.

The current prosperity that Nashvillians like to brag about can be snuffed out quickly if we simply wait for the future to befall us, standing by with our hands folded. Our peer cities are not doing it that way. Waiting idly, on this subject, is the road to economic stagnation.

The Metro Council has not yet authorized the May 1 vote, but city fathers and mothers will find it hard to escape letting us all vote on this pivotal choice between very different futures.

When they give me the choice, I plan to vote yes.

Keel Hunt is a Tennessean columnist and the author of “Coup: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor.” Reach him at Keel@TSGNashville.com.



