Photo by dconvertini

APRIL 12, 2018

Cheaper Faster Greener Better

Transit Alternatives for Nashville

by: Bruce Campbell and Andy Martin

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 Contents
Summary 3

What this is, and what this isn’t 4

What’s wrong with Light Rail Transit? 5-9

What’s wrong with the Tunnel? 10-15

Alternatives to the Nashville Transit Plan

Bus on By-Pass Shoulder 16-17

Ride-share and Ride-hail 18-23

Autonomous Vehicles 24-26

Telecommuting and Flex-time 27-31

Adding Lanes 32-33

TOD and Value Capture 34-37

Conclusion 38-41

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Summary
On May 1st, 2018, Nashville and Davidson County residents will vote in the County
Primary for a transit referendum.

According to the referendum language, if passed it would include: “expanded bus

service countywide; new transit lines; new light rail and/or rapid bus service
along Nashville’s major corridors, including the Northwest Corridor, and a tunnel
connection through downtown Nashville; new neighborhood transit centers;
improvements to existing train service; safety improvements, including sidewalks
and pedestrian connections; and system modernization.”

The referendum will require $8.95 billion in revenue through 2032. This revenue
would be generated by tax increases, debt, federal grants (if approved), farebox
revenues, and convention center and airport authority participation. Related
taxes are: 1) sales tax increase of 0.5% for the first five years, increasing to 1% in
2023; 2) hotel/motel tax increase of 0.25% for the first five years, increasing to
0.375% in 2023; 3) 20% increase on the business tax; and 4) 20% increase on the
rental car tax.

Approximately 80% of the total cost is devoted to light

rail and a tunnel*

In as much as $8.95 billion is four times the entire annual Nashville budget, we
describe here what we believe to be cheaper, faster, greener, and better transit
alternatives, so taxpayers will have the confidence to know that voting against
this proposal is not the end of, rather it’s the beginning of a superior transit
environment in Nashville/Davidson County. We believe that if these alternatives
are adopted traffic congestion will drop, service capacity will increase, and
taxes will not need to be raised.

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What this is, and what this isn’t

We will review alternatives to the Let’s Move Nashville, Metro’s Transportation

Solution, Transit Improvement Program, December 13, 2017 (Transit Plan). This is
the plan that the May 1, 2018 tax referendum is based on. Our focus will be on
alternatives to the most expensive and potentially destructive, in our opinion,
parts of the plan, which are light rail (LRT), and the downtown transit tunnel
(Tunnel).

Though the Transit Plan is fifty-five pages and is a comprehensive review of

various proposed transit types, with detailed maps, rationale, and associated
costs, roughly 80% of the total costs are for LRT and the Tunnel. The rest of the
Transit Plan is beyond our purview. We are not anti-public transit, bus, BRT (bus
rapid transit), BRT Light, ride-share, bike, sidewalk, AccessRide, autonomous
vehicle, or any other mode of transit found in the plan.

Nor, have we any argument or suggested

improvements with the routes, maps, or engineering
around the Transit Plan for any of the modes of
transit besides LRT and the Tunnel. We leave that
planning in the able hands of the Metro Transit
Authority. Public transit is a common good for any
large city such as Nashville, and we have no reason
to believe that the administration of public transit
should be dissected and questioned herein beyond
normal routine oversight.

However, without LRT and the Tunnel there would be no requirement for
“permanent financing” or for a tax referendum. The city of Nashville is voting on
taxes, not plans. This is our focus.

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What’s wrong with Light Rail Transit?

According to the American Public Transportation Association LRT is found in over 30

cities in the U.S. Though LRT has some appealing characteristics, such as mostly being
electric, and having dedicated routes, it is significantly more expensive than alternate
forms of transit.

Statistics show that LRT is two to sixteen-times more expensive per mile than buses. The
wide variation in estimates is because the first number is a median U.S. aggregate from
the National Transit Database. The second is specific to the Nashville plan, according to
Malcolm Getz, PhD, an economics professor at Vanderbilt University.

Additionally, LRT demands street and building destruction, massive land purchases,
eminent domain, station and track construction, and the purchase and operation of
hundreds of million-dollar trains.

To confound these problems LRT ridership is dropping in almost every city, because of
emerging transit options such as ride-hail (Uber, Lyft, etc.), ride-share, and the growing
use of personal vehicles.

Other demographic factors that work against LRT include growing telecommuting, and
home-officing. According to Global Workplace Analytics:
• 50% of the US workforce holds a job that is compatible with at least partial
telecommuting
• Regular work-at-home, among the non-self-employed population, has grown by
115% since 2005, nearly 10x faster than the rest of the workforce
• 3.7 million employees (2.8% of the workforce) now work from home at least half
the time

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These trends will not reverse, ever, and will be a permanent drag on the need for public
or private transit, and especially for costly LRT. Overall, “transit ridership fell in 31 of 35
major metropolitan areas in the United States last year.” And, for the year before, “In all
but a handful of cities, public transit ridership was down in 2016. New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Austin and Washington, D.C., to name a few, all saw decreases in the number
of people taking public transit.”

According to Joel Kotkin, “In 23 metropolitan areas that have built new rail systems
since 1970, transit’s share of commuting -- including all forms, such as buses and ferries
-- has actually slipped a bit, from an average of 5.0 percent before the rail systems
opened to 4.6 percent in 2013.” Further, he writes, “Virtually all the actual increase in
rail commuting has occurred in the legacy cities: New York, Boston, San Francisco,
Washington, Chicago and Philadelphia. These are older cities built around well-defined
cores that were developed mostly before the automobile.”

Last year was not an

exception. Public transit use
per capita has fallen for the
last ten-years according to
Evelyn Blumenberg, Michael
Manville, and Brian D. Taylor
of the UCLA Institute of
Transportation Studies. (See
chart at left)

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A notable exception to the national trend of falling LRT ridership has been Seattle,
Washington. (See chart at right) “Light-rail ridership ballooned amid expansions, from 3
million trips in 2002 to 32 million in
2017.” Advocacy groups for the Transit
Plan have used Seattle as a positive
illustration on what Nashville might
expect if it develops LRT.

Unfortunately, Seattle is a poor

comparison to Nashville. The relative
success of LRT is directly dependent on
population density and other factors.

The Transit Now Nashville 501(c)3, has compared Seattle to Nashville as their best
example of why we need light rail. This is an apple to oranges comparison. The two
cities could not be more different.

Seattle has 20,000 more people than Nashville (Seattle 704,000; Nashville 684,000—
2016 numbers) but is 1/6 of the size of Nashville. (Seattle 84 sq. miles; Nashville 526 sq.
miles). Put another way, Seattle is six times denser than Nashville.

Seattle is also bordered by

two bodies of water, Puget
Sound to the west, and Lake
Washington to the east. It is a
virtual island. Seattle is
surrounded by high
mountains and thousands of
acres of parkland.
Additionally, Seattle has

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seven cities within 30 minutes travel time that are bigger than Franklin, TN. And many of
those residents’ commute to this tiny crowded peninsula every day.

Perhaps Seattle must have public transportation, such as BRT or LRT to move people in
and out. There may be no better way for them when the population is so high in such a
densely populated area.

Nashville topography and population are entirely different. This is why roughly 47% of
downtown commutes in Seattle are by public transit, whereas only 2.2% of residents in
Nashville regularly use public transit. No matter how much Nashville spends on public
transit the topography of the city will not change.

In addition to cost and lack of

demand, LRT fails in another very
important way. Light rail does not
relieve traffic congestion. According
to the 2017 traffic scorecard by
INRIX these are the ten most
congested cities in the U.S. Each of
these cities have another thing in
common. They all have rail. If light
rail or heavy rail lived up to its
promise to relieve traffic congestion
by taking cars off the road then the
congestion to rail correlation would
not exist. Even Seattle, with its
successful LRT program has not
relieved traffic congestion.

Indianapolis, a city that is like Nashville, in contrast to Seattle, said no to rail and yes to
buses, and is building out an impressive fleet of electric buses for a $100 million bus
rapid transit (BRT) line. If Nashville leaders could only exercise patience instead of

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forcing an unwieldy $9 billion plan and bring its case to the state legislature to try to
remove its ban on BRT on state highways, we will have the opportunity to build a much
more affordable, flexible, and sustainable transit system.

This does not mean that LRT could not have value. Certainly, the lucky few who live and
work close to the LRT station can read the paper, or Tweet while commuting to work,
instead of fighting traffic. However, as a transit alternative, of which there are many
that we will cover, LRT is not one that will relieve congestion unless Nashville’s
experience is entirely different from most other major metropolitan areas.

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What’s wrong with the Tunnel?

All things being equal, it is not unreasonable to try to direct bus and rail traffic under the
city center, rather than through it. But, all things are rarely equal, especially when this is
a $936 million add-on to an already stretched multibillion-dollar plan.

There are hundreds of tunnels across the U.S. Most of them accommodate rail or
vehicular traffic outside of city cores. And most of them function to take traffic through
mountains, not under cities. Many of them are abandoned. The few active tunnels that
exist in city centers are in NYC, D.C., Boston, Dallas, and Seattle—cities that are
materially denser than Nashville.

The rationale for such a massive undertaking has come from the notion that Nashville is
preparing for a population explosion. From Page three of the Transit Plan: “Davidson
County alone is expected to grow from about 658,000 residents to about 813,000 by
2040, an increase of about 24 percent.” Despite that this is not significantly faster
growth than what is expected for the rest of the U.S., most of these new residents will
not settle in downtown Nashville.

Note that the media and the pro-transit tax group often confuses Nashville which grows
by roughly 16 people per day with the Nashville 14-county MSA which grows by 80 per
day. Big difference.
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To this, critics of the Transit Plan note that the plan seems to have an identity crisis. Is it
a regional plan? If so, why are only Nashville/Davidson Country residents on the hook
for a tax increase? Is it a Nashville core plan? Why then isn’t the Central Business
Improvement District (CBID) assessed to pay for this? Particularly since downtown
developers would be the chief beneficiaries of a tunnel.

The Tunnel would perfectly bisect the CBID yet does not interrupt its throughways,
storefronts, parking, right of way, etc. With portals just one block on each side from the
CBID, it is no wonder that city planners picked this area. And, it is no wonder that the
CBID so heartily approved it, as it leaves their entire marketplace untouched by a transit
program that will burden almost every other neighborhood in the county. The results
are two stops on either side of the CBID, and one underground stop at 5th and
Broadway, which again, does not interfere with their businesses. (See below).

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Since there is significant crossover in board membership between the CBID, Metro
Transit Authority, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and the Citizens for Greater
Mobility--the pro-transit tax PAC, it is easy to imagine how such a business friendly (to
them) arrangement was created.

Since digging a tunnel under the most valuable real estate in the state would be the
most expensive and risky project in our city’s history, the proposal needs a thorough
vetting.

In June of 2015, the Nashville Metropolitan Planning Commission officially adopted

nashvillenext, the city’s general plan for land use, infrastructure, transportation,
economic development, and other areas. There was nothing unclear about this
statement: “The geology and geography of the Middle Tennessee region makes the
construction of subway-type mass transit systems difficult.” It stressed the need for
Nashville to adopt transit strategies that are suitable to its “disconnected, low-density
development pattern” and its “hard bedrock and preserved, forested hills of the region”
that “make underground transit cost prohibitive.” It warned that “a rapid transit
solution appropriate for Oakland or Atlanta may not be feasible in today’s Nashville.”

Despite the warnings, Mayor Barry’s Transit Plan featured a 1.8-mile tunnel under
downtown Nashville. The proposal may have surprised Metro planners who are familiar
with the hard limestone bedrock – up to 100 feet thick in most places – that forms the
bluff where downtown Nashville is perched. But streets in downtown Nashville are
generally narrow and lack the right-of-ways for the widening that would be required to
bring five light rail corridors together without massively disrupting vehicle traffic.

Tunnel construction techniques have advanced, and tunnel projects have been
successfully completed in many cities. The problem with tunnels is all about what you
don’t know. And at this phase of the Transit Plan little is known about the actual
conditions that will ultimately determine how much it will cost or how

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long it will take to complete the tunnel and stations. That is why the transit plan is non-
committal about both the tunnel design and construction technique needed. However,
engineers have expressed their preference to use tunnel boring technology rather than
the even more costly and severely disruptive cut-and-cover method.

Tunnel boring comes with its own set of risks. According to the FTA, tunneling for transit
projects is as much an art as a science, which underscores how unpredictable it can be.
Nashville’s plan, still somewhat vague, shows planning and development for the tunnel
would last five years until 2023, and the tunnel itself would not be complete until 2027,
five-years before the last light rail corridor is scheduled for completion in 2032. It is also
notable that Nashville’s plan calls for the tunnel to be completed before the light rail
corridors, which makes sense since the tunnel is where all the lines converge. But that
also means that any delay in construction would also mean a delay in the completion of
light rail service. The tunnel may in fact be the linchpin of the transit project, but it is
also perhaps its weakest link.

During the planning phase, any known utilities and other substructures will have to be
carefully mapped. Then, extensive (and disruptive) drilling would occur downtown in
order to analyze the underlying geology, which is likely to change along the tunnel’s 1.8
mile path, according to Ron Zurwaski, state geologist for the Tennessee Geological
Survey. Only then would it be possible to complete the final tunnel design and
construction approach.

Tunnel boring technology is impressive, but still notoriously unpredictable. Even after
drilling, the actual geology encountered below ground rarely behaves as expected. As a
result, tunneling speeds can be reduced by as much as 85%, or tunneling can be stopped
altogether.

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As we have noted, promoters of the light rail plan love to talk about Seattle. Therefore,
let’s consider what happened in Seattle with one of its current tunneling projects. When
Seattle’s state-of-the-art, 54-feet-wide tunnel boring machine, dubbed “Big Bertha”, hit
an unknown 8-inch steel pipe that was left buried in its path years earlier, the machine
eventually shut down. The failure revealed another problem with tunnel boring
technology – the machines are not designed to move backwards. The only means of
repairing the machine in these cases is to dig a new deep pit to gain access to it. For
Seattle that process delayed construction for two years. The project is currently four
years behind schedule and $hundreds of millions over budget.

Boring through solid rock (as would be in the case in Nashville) presents other
challenges as well. Compared to softer soil geologies, solid rock boring comes with
much higher noise and vibration levels. The only mitigation that is available is to change
(reduce) the speed of the cutter heads on the boring equipment, which if needed, would
cause further construction delays. In downtown, with the variety of business operating
during the day, as well as hotels and entertainment facilities operating day and night,
there is little hope but that a tunnel project for downtown would be very disruptive for
several years.

Other unknowns that could plague the proposed Nashville tunnel include unpredictable
groundwater effects, and the well-known flood zone caused by the Cumberland River.
Plan engineers have pointed out that solid rock tunnels can be advantageous because
they often don’t require additional spending on solid liners to maintain structural
integrity. But leaking water or worse – flooding – are particularly unfriendly to this type
of construction.

Tunnels also require ventilation, which can create costly maintenance problems, as
Atlanta recently discovered.

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The axiom of “whatever can go wrong probably will” applies with near uniformity to
transit tunnel projects. That’s why the FTA requires that contingency costs be included
with project estimates.

Nevertheless, even loaded with contingencies, tunnel and other so-called

“megaprojects” in the US and globally almost always exceed their budgets and
timelines. Why is this so? Part of it has to do with the underlying unpredictability of
tunnel design and construction as we have noted.

The other part is more of a practical matter for tunnel engineers. There is no incentive
for these contractors to offer anything but the most optimistic of cost estimates. Once
the project is approved and funded, they know (with the same certainty that Nashville’s
proposed tunnel must be completed, or the entire project fails) that no matter what
happens, there is negligible risk of not being paid whatever it takes for however long it
takes to finish the work.

Metro planning engineers had it right to begin with – Nashville isn’t suited for
underground transit. Unfortunately, former Mayor, Megan Barry, refused to listen, and
the Tunnel ended up in the Transit Plan.

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Bus on By-Pass Shoulder
The Transit Plan does not include bus on by-pass shoulder (BBS). BBS is successfully used
on heavily congested interstates during rush hour traffic. A bus literally hugs the
shoulder fully or partially to speed around stopped traffic. One can imagine the relief in
traffic volume with 50 passengers in one bus rather than in 50 cars.

BBS figures prominently in the

nashvillenext A General Plan for
Nashville & Davidson County, Volume V:
Access Nashville 2040, Adopted June 22,
2015, but did not make the final cut to
the Transit Plan, besides as an after-
thought. It is difficult to see why, since it
would take no new construction, and
perhaps not even require new purchases
of equipment. It is a pure congestion solution—the only widely used congestion solution
in the U.S.

As the above reports states on page 81, “Management of highway lanes requires
coordination between local and state police to keep stopped traffic off shoulders, so
buses can utilize the shoulder during peak congestion. It also requires a robust
intelligent transportation system (ITS) to monitor traffic conditions and alert agencies
and motorists to issues.” Thus, BBS is a sophisticated solution with costs and
complications of its own.

However, from a Washington Post article: “It’s hard to think of any [traffic relief
measure] more within reach without requiring enormous expenditures,” said Arlington
County Board member Chris Zimmerman for a task force organized by the Metropolitan
Washington Council of Governments. “In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which helped
pioneer the idea, buses use a network of shoulders spanning more than 250 miles.
Other cities that allow it include San Diego, Miami, Atlanta and Cleveland.” The Federal
Transit Administration found that “the apparent reason for the absence of performance
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data is that no problems have arisen and the [buses on shoulders] concept appears
intuitively beneficial.”

A short history of BBS in Minneapolis: “Metro Transit wanted a way to get buses
through traffic more cost effectively. At the same time, MnDOT was looking for ways to
make better use of existing lanes. Even better, bus-only shoulders cost a fraction of
added lanes. MnDOT found that by allowing transit vehicles to use shoulders, they could
move more people more quickly with minimal investment…Since shoulder use is built
into the project, the transit advantage adds capacity without significant cost.”

Once again, BBS is not the only solution to congestion or moving many people safely
through traffic, however,
Minneapolis has used it successfully
for 27 years. (See map on right) That
BBS is not a significant proposal in
the Transit Plan, or in MTA’s existing
menu of services is troubling,
particularly when surveys are
consistent: Nashville demands relief
from traffic congestion.

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 Ride-share and Ride-hail

The terms “Ride-sharing” and “Ride-hailing” have taken on entirely new meaning since
the days of gas lines in the 1970s. Now, technology-fueled smartphone apps provide a
new array of options for people who want to be less dependent on their own cars when
getting from point A to point B.

But the terms themselves have become muddled, and are often used interchangeably,
which highlights how quickly – and disruptively – they are altering the fabric of transit in
the US and worldwide.

For our purposes, “Ride-hailing” refers to on-demand transportation services like Uber
and Lyft (though it’s worth noting that both companies refer to themselves as “ride-
sharing” companies). Ride-hailing also refers to traditional taxis and car services. The
main distinction in today’s lexicon is that ride-hailing is accomplished with an app versus
a phone call or waving from the street. The overall mission is still the same – a customer
hires a driver to take them somewhere.

“Ride-sharing” refers to companies like Hytch, SuperShuttle, Chariot, Express POOL, VIA,
and other transportation services that use apps to enable two or more passengers
(including the driver) using one vehicle to go somewhere. Of the characteristics that

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distinguish ride-share and ride-hail (we describe more below), this is the most
important. By combining passenger trips in one vehicle, ride-sharing reduces the
number of vehicles on the road. Ride-sharing offers a clear benefit to communities
looking for transit solutions to reduce the number of vehicles and air pollution.

That’s not to say that ride-hailing does not, but there is some disagreement about it.
Critics argue that ride-hailing is only a substitute – passengers merely swap an Uber for
their own vehicle for trips – and that ride-hailing competes with mass transit. On the
other hand, ride-hailing price premiums during peak traffic periods are effectively
incentives for riders to use mass transit instead. And there are studies that indicate
more Americans have ditched their cars all together in favor of ride-hailing services. But
ride-sharing and ride-hailing both share at least one trait – they both help reduce
dependence on owning or using your own car, and the costs that come with it.

The market for both ride-sharing and ride-hailing (and their associated apps) is rapidly
evolving. Many companies (like Uber and Lyft) have cross-offerings in both channels.
Here are some of the features that distinguish these innovative transportation services:

Car services versus networking – Hytch and Zimride (by Enterprise) do not operate
fleets or directly provide car services. Zimride is a networking app designed for
universities and businesses that want to sponsor their own ride-sharing programs.

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Hytch is focused on tracking shared rides and delivering cash incentives and other
rewards to riders through its partner programs. Nissan North America is a key partner
offering cash incentives to Hytch riders in Middle Tennessee. There are several apps in
the non-affiliated carpool ride-share space as well.

On-demand versus scheduled – Uber and Lyft are established on-demand car service
apps, but there are many emerging services that require a degree of pre-planning and
booking ahead of time (some as low as 30 minutes, which might be considered quasi-
on-demand).

Pricing and payment – It may be cliché but nevertheless accurate to say pricing is all
over the map. Some services offer flat up-front rates, while others are per-mile or per-
hour, and there are some rideshare (carpool) apps that leave that question up to the
riders. Driver gratuities are now featured as well. Premium pricing during peak demand
hours or for certain events (think severe weather or New Year’s Eve) is common.
Penalties for late or no-show riders may also apply. Most app services feature electronic
payment options.

Door-to-door versus nearby – ride-hailing is uniquely a door-to-door service offering.

Some ride-sharing services rely on “nearby” locations for pick-up and drop-off to
simplify their logistic models.

Single versus multiple destinations – ride-sharing may involve a single trip where riders
share the same destination, or multiple destinations. This feature, known as “ride-
linking”, can yield cost-savings for riders, and play a key role in serving longer trips (such
as city-to-city).

GPS tracking and driver/rider messaging – these features allow you to keep track of
how close your driver is when you’re waiting for pickup, and either directly or indirectly
keep drivers and riders in touch during the process.

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Customer service – Lyft offers a 24-hour customer service hotline that has been an
attractive feature for customers, especially when things don’t go as expected.

Driver and rider ratings – In the age of social media and online feedback, rating systems
offer an additional layer of choice for both customers and providers. Some companies
tout their driver screening and hiring criteria (one in Nashville requires FBI background
checks for its drivers) as another way of ensuring rider safety and a positive customer
experience. Unlike many customer interactions, the captive nature of being a passenger
in a commercial vehicle is inherently more sensitive to safety and customer experience
issues.

In the Nashville area, there are new services that demonstrate how ride-sharing and
ride-hailing can be an important part of a strong regional transit plan. For example,
RideSimply focuses only on customers in Brentwood and Franklin and offers flat rate
trips both locally and to key Nashville destinations like the airport and Bridgestone
arena. A ride service with a focused geographic footprint can complement public transit
instead of competing with it, helping residents get to nearby transit. Both Uber and Lyft
have run similar programs in smaller cities in Florida and Colorado.

Nashville Electric Transportation (NET) is another example. Launched in early 2017, the
company features an all-electric fleet of Tesla cars. NET’s greener, carbon-free footprint
yields benefits to Nashville irrespective of the vehicle replacement/displacement
debate.

What can ride-sharing and ride-hailing mean to Nashville and how should they be
incorporated in the city’s transit plan?
First, these technologies-cum-transit-
solutions have been treated like mere
footnotes in the “Let’s Move Nashville” plan,
with its myopic focus on expensive,

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outdated, urban-only Light Rail. Ride-sharing and ride-hailing are innovative,
transformative solutions that have already rocked the transportation world
everywhere. And they are only getting started. Ride-share and ride-hail deserve a
prominent role in the plan to shape Nashville’s future.

Second, ride-sharing and ride-hailing were born and have flourished in the private
sector. They have not relied on publicly funded capital investments or operating
expenses. Nashville could create public/private partnerships that could be developed
at minimal cost to the city.

What could these partnerships do? They could be tasked with the following:

• Expanding and improving access to regional commuting services

• Closing gaps in areas where the city is constrained in providing transit services
• Develop and manage incentive programs to accomplish transit objectives
• Ensure that technology is current and accessible across transit services

Example of ride-share vs. legacy mass

transit – This is happening now, not in
2032, when light-rail may come on line
in Nashville. Mayor Jeff Williams of
Arlington, TX says light rail is outdated
& expensive & ride-sharing is “a
fraction of spending $50 million a mile
for light rail.” So, he is ditching buses and switching to shuttles operated by Via. Via vans
pick up passengers for $3.00 per ride. This generates much less GHG (greenhouse gases)
per passenger than large buses with seating capacity of 40 or more and is exactly the
kind of public/private partnership that says future, rather than past.

The Transit Plan mentions a few of these innovations in passing but does not recognize
the enormous existing market. Uber, for example, is the largest taxi-cab company in the

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world now but did not exist 10 years ago. Ride-sharing and ride-hailing are point to
point, door to door, driveway to driveway--not station to station as legacy mass transit
demands. Ask the aged, handicapped, infirmed, or too young to use public transit,
which is preferable.

Ride-sharing and ride-hailing are not interesting market niches nibbling at the ankles of
an otherwise bureaucratic transit system. They represent “the democratization of
mobility” and are worrisome competitors to the central command and control
prerogatives of the Nashville mayor, Metro Council, MTA, and city planners. They are
vibrant, already-working transit solutions that should be harnessed by Nashville as key
components of its vision for the future.

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 Autonomous Vehicles

In 1990, when boxy desktop computers with noisy floppy disk drives still ran an
operating system called MS-DOS, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a science-fiction
action film called “Total Recall.” Few who watched its initial release will ever forget the
scenes that featured “Johnny Cab,” the driverless taxi that whisked Douglas Quaid
around the enclosed colony on Mars. Complete with his own brand of robotic “cabbie”
humor, “Johnny Cab” created a lasting meme of the
autonomous vehicle (AV) concept – Hollywood’s
vision of a distant future. Little did we know then
how the specter of autonomous vehicles would
interrupt the cozy nature of our transportation world
in 2018. But here they are – a force that has
developed to the point that it must be reckoned with.

What is AV? Generally, AV equates to “driverless”, devoid of human conduction.

Gartner offers a more useful definition:

“An autonomous vehicle can drive itself from a starting point to a

predetermined destination in ‘autopilot’ mode using various
technologies and sensors, including adaptive cruise control, active
steering, anti-lock braking, and GPS navigation systems, lasers, and
radar.”

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What’s notable about Gartner’s take is that while AV is technically “driverless”, many of
the underlying technologies are familiar and used by [human] drivers today. That should
serve as a warning shot to those who remain dismissive about AV or its near-term
potential to disrupt transit.

Who is working on AV? The short

answer is – everybody. More than 40
companies alone are directly engaged
in vehicle development. They include
big brands like Tesla and Google
(Alphabet). But the A-Z list of
technology companies (chip makers,
software developers, and more)
supporting the effort is even longer, and underscores that working AV transit solutions
at scale are around the corner. In fact, there is consensus among Gartner and other
think tanks that large deployment will be in place just two short years from now in
2020.

How will AV benefit us? AV will yield benefits in several areas:

• Safety – AVs will reduce accidents, fatalities, and as a result, lower insurance and
healthcare costs. “Human error causes 94 percent of car accidents.”
• Reduction in fuel consumption and travel time – AVs are expected to increase
efficiency and yield up to 40% reductions in time and fuel for travel.
• Reduced congestion – efficient routing and real-time data on road conditions will
reduce congestion. “A small percentage of autonomous vehicles (5 percent) could
have a significant impact in eliminating waves” which improves traffic flow.
• Supplement to public transit – AVs will improve accessibility and safety for the
aged/disabled population and can fill gaps in transit models like the first-mile-
last-mile problem.

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What are potential AV risks?

• High vehicle costs (initially)

• Technical security and technology reliability – for example, can sensors be
hacked, and how will they work in the rain or other adverse conditions?
• Impact on transit use – the availability of AV technology at an individual level
could potentially shift preferences away from public transit.
• Lack of clarity around partial use of AV technology – for example, a mix of plain
old human drivers and AV’s might not yield safety benefits.

AV is not just “tomorrow” technology. Waymo AV’s have logged more than 5 million
miles on the road already. How soon is already? “The California department of motor
vehicles announced it would grant permits for fully autonomous cars on the road
starting in April.” 2018. Not 2032.

The Mayor of Nashville recently hosted a self-promoting “Declaration of Independence”

presentation in an odd rebuke of cars, of which there are over 230 million on the road
in the U.S. As quaint as the idea sounds that we might all take one step off our front
porch onto a train that will take us everywhere one day, the fact is we may be able to
take one step off our porch one day next year and indeed go everywhere. With trains
this will always be impossible. With AV it is right around the bend.

Additionally, a war on cars is bad business. As Randal O’Toole, with the Cato Institute
wrote, “building expensive transit systems aimed at getting people out of their less-
expensive cars generates zero economic benefits if it generates no new travel.” Think
about that.

Finally, as to independence. Who is the more independent? The aged, ill, handicapped,
blind, or too young to ride mass transit, from a station a half-mile away, to a station
another half-mile away from their destination? Or, the person who has door-to-door
mobility 24/7?

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Telecommuting and Flex-time

The reader may wonder why we would include telecommuting (or telework) and flex-
time in a review of transit alternatives. After all, neither are vehicles or traditional
modes of transportation.

But, consider this. The top-ten employers in Nashville plus Metro Government employ
roughly 80,000 people. If these companies alone used flex-time scheduling, where
instead of the routine 9-to-5 work schedule, employees had the choice of working 7-to-
3, 8-to-4, 9-to-5, or 10-to-6, rush hour congestion would likely disappear.

What makes it rush hour is not the width of the roads, or number of vehicles on them.
The roads are fine Sunday morning and Tuesday after lunch. What creates the
congestion is that most of us work 9-to-5. We crowd the highways twice a day, and most
of us at the same time. Why is this? Why not expand options? Not only would
employees be happier to have the wider work hour choices, but customers would be
served from 7-to-6 instead of 9-to-5.

60% of workers believe that 9-to-5 is a thing of the past, so there will not be much push
back from workers for a schedule change. Of course, there are many complications with
this. Should companies be forced to provide flex-time? What about Vanderbilt
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University Medical Center, which is 20,000 of these 80,000 workers? They already
operate around the clock. Or, what about parents with children? How does a company
manage around an 11-hour workday, instead of an 8-hour work day, etc.? However,
there is no argument that the more Nashville companies can move away from the
traditional 9-to-5 work day, everyone wins. Net cost? $0.

Regarding telecommuting, from the “Bureau of Labor Statistics, among all workers, 23%
report spending all or part of their day working from home…39% (2014) of those with a
bachelor’s degree worked from home.

The growth of telecommuting has been staggering and has accompanied the growth of
computers in the workplace. A Gallup poll showed that “Thirty-seven percent of U.S.
workers say they have telecommuted, up slightly from 30% last decade but four times
greater than the 9% found in 1995.”

When Nashville city officials speak of the growth coming for Nashville and the
surrounding area it is absurd to think that it instantly becomes a transit burden.
Telecommuting will grow “far faster” than any mode of transport. This is extremely
important and should be encouraged by Nashville leaders, not ignored, as it has been.

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 In over half (57%) of the largest metros areas, the
percentage of workers who telecommute exceeds the
percentage who use public transit services.

And if you believe that this is a trend only for tech heavy Silicon Valley or for the
congested northeast you may be surprised to hear that Chattanooga leads the way
(chart next page) in telecommuting. Perhaps Nashville mayors should spend more time
in Chattanooga than Athens, Greece on business trips.

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There are many reasons to encourage telecommuting, among these are environmental.
“Existing telecommuters reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking
over 600,000 cars off the road for a year.” (See chart below)

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If indeed, as many employers have said in various surveys, that transit, traffic, and
congestion are serious issues, then why not start with a relatively cost-free and low
disruption solution? Mayor David Briley, instead of using his platform to force a major
tax increase, could instead extol the virtues of flex-time, just as President Obama said in
2008, that keeping tires inflated could increase gas mileage. He was right, and it is a
lesson that we have never forgotten. It was not an entire energy plan, nor would the
urging of flex-time or telecommuting be an entire transit plan, but why not first exhaust
the low friction cost-free solutions?

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 Adding Lanes

Building a tunnel under downtown Nashville begs the question: If LRT reduces street
congestion why do we need to remove it from the street only on Fifth Avenue? If LRT
reduces congestion on Charlotte Avenue, Gallatin Pike, and Murfreesboro Pike, as its
promoters claim, why would it not reduce congestion on Fifth Avenue? How can it be
that sometimes LRT reduces congestion, and at other times it does not?

This may seem like a rhetorical question since we are aware that Fifth Avenue is a
narrower street, but the message is inconsistent. Therefore, to be consistent, and to
continue the north/south connector for LRT and buses, they can travel for significantly
less expense on Fifth Avenue, than under Fifth Avenue.

If this sounds silly, then it should also sound silly to hear that “widening roads does not
relieve congestion” as some say. This is commonly called induced demand. So common
that it is likely not true, or, is at least mis-applied. The theory is that as roads are
widened the demand will simply follow—so why bother widening roads? It is also called
latent demand, Lewis–Mogridge Position, the Iron Law of Traffic, Jevons Paradox, or
Braess’ paradox. Many people want to take credit for this novel idea.
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In the popular press induced demand seems to be the only technicality armchair writers
know for sure about transit. Unfortunately, as in all theories it often does not hold true.
If it did, congestion would always grow at a greater rate than widening highways.
However, Randal O’Toole and UC Berkeley planning professor Robert Cervero have
written persuasively against it. “Cervero believes that the induced demand argument is
wrong headed. Road investments by themselves do not increase volumes.”

Certainly, widening a road will not work to relieve congestion forever, but it increases
the capacity of the road—forever--which is the primary objective of roadways.
“Professor Brian Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles, found in a landmark
study that the best ways to reduce congestion were through significantly enlarging
roadway capacity, restricting roadway usage and pricing roadways. Expanding transit did
very little.”

The only mention of road widening in the Transit Plan is to accommodate buses, BRT, or
LRT—not cars. The narrow focus of the Transit Plan on LRT, the Tunnel, and buses has
been one of the chief complaints against it. When obvious transit improvement options
are taken off the table the victims are Nashville/Davidson County residents.

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TOD and Value Capture

“Transit-oriented development, or TOD, is a type of community development that

includes a mixture of housing, office, retail and/or other amenities integrated into a
walkable neighborhood and located within a half-mile of quality public transportation.”

This is not a review of “transit-oriented development” (TOD), but we mention it because

the Transit Plan is dependent on it for popular and financial support. TOD is not just
what happens to grow up around train stations, it is integral, rightly or wrongly, to the
planning for light rail.

The problem comes when development--not transit—leads. Such is happening with the
Nashville Transit Plan. Why is this a problem? Because the plan meets the needs of big
developers, first, and everyone else second. This can completely reshape a town,
increase density, push up neighborhood prices, gentrify what were once affordable
neighborhoods, and make traffic congestion worse, ironically. All of this at a great cost
to the taxpayer. In this scenario the only winners are big developers and ambitious city
officials.

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Below is an example of what a local Nashville pro-transit tax group considers to be a
“good case study” for TOD. It is the opposite.

This is new construction in Fruitvale, a neighborhood in Oakland, California. Though

transit advocates cite this as a positive example of development around light rail, the
experience of disenchanted locals can be far different. This is the story of a young man
named Emiliano Villa, who lived first-hand the before and after experience of TOD.

“I grew up in Oakland’s Fruitvale district, a primarily Latino

community. Things in my neighborhood are changing rapidly. The way
it’s going, I’m afraid the hometown I recognize won’t be around much
longer. On my drive home the other day, I noticed a mural that read:
“Gentrification drives the color out of the community.” I see this every
day in Oakland. So many of my family members and friends have
moved out of the town to surrounding suburbs, like Antioch, Stockton,
and even Modesto, because they can’t afford the rent. I’ve watched as
local businesses shutter, replaced by storefronts that don’t cater to my

35
 community. A Mexican restaurant my family frequented closed, only
to become an artisanal beer garden. Bougie bars and restaurants dot
the streets. They seem out of place in a neighborhood where many
locals struggle to afford a cheap meal. Sometimes, it feels like these
businesses come into our communities, only to exclude us. Oakland is
my home and I can’t imagine leaving. But it hurts to see the culture I
grew up with fade away. Because when the people who built this
community leave, they take Oakland’s spirit with them.”

If maintaining the character of existing stable neighborhoods is an objective, transit-

oriented development upturns this. Unfortunately, the people displaced are rarely
around afterwards to be interviewed. In addition, and maybe even most insidious is that
TOD can destroy naturally affordable homes and replace them with much smaller
taxpayer-financed proxies.

To help push the Transit plan along and sell it to a wary public a political action
committee (PAC) was formed called Citizens for Greater Mobility, a multimillion-dollar
advocacy group made up of corporate, educational, and non-profit entities. Roughly
25% of the donors are architectural, engineering, construction, development,
contracting, and landscaping companies. The hope of these companies is to share in the
tremendous once in a business-lifetime opportunity to earn big construction awards for
what would be Nashville’s biggest investment ever.

Which leads us to Value Capture. Value Capture explained:

“Public investment in a new rail line or motorway can generate huge

increases in surrounding land values. In part the increase derives from
improved accessibility for existing residents and businesses. High
windfalls also arise once land has been rezoned to capitalise on higher
development opportunities generated by the new infrastructure.

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 Since public investments and decisions are intended to maximise
community benefit, it seems unfair and inefficient that some private
landowners profit immensely from the process while others gain little
or may even be disadvantaged.

Value capture mechanisms seek to rectify this by clawing back at least

some of the increased business revenue or land value. These funds are
then allocated towards the initial costs of infrastructure provision.”

In other words, the architectural, engineering, construction, development, contracting,

and landscaping companies that we spoke of above would help pay for the $9 billion
Transit Plan with value capture. They win at taxpayer expense, so they pay. It is simple.
Japan, Hong Kong, and Latin America have done it for years, and the city of Boston
considered it, too late, for the “Big Dig.” Additionally, value capture is in President
Trump’s infrastructure plan.

Any other arrangement is simple corporate welfare. Taxpayers take all the risk, while
developers reap the rewards.

Our guess is that since we have not had a business savvy mayor in Nashville since Phil
Bredesen (our opinion), that the current mayor will not present this option, nor force his
patrons (the large developers who have contributed to the PAC, and his campaign) to
share in the expense of this massive plan. Were our mayor more of a fiduciary and
taxpayer focused; or if he truly believed in being “equitable,” a word his staff associates
freely with the Transit Plan, he would insist that the city claw back the profits it
subsidized from its taxpayer financed investment.

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Conclusion

When the discussion starts with how to assure permanent financing, how do we hire
more government workers, how do we maximize TOD, how can we be sure to include
enough affordable housing, etc., you can guess one thing. The discussion is not about
transit. It is about something else.

Cheaper, faster, greener, better is about transit—how to create the most effective and
efficient transit system. Period. It is not about solving the city’s employment, housing,
finance, development, and growth problems as expensively as possible.

The Transit Plan is predominantly about light rail and a tunnel. We have showed why
both are ill-advised for Nashville. Nashville is not New York City, despite the Mayor
inviting Janette Sadik-Khan, a former commissioner of the New York City Department of
Transportation to Nashville for a boost. And, Nashville is not Seattle, Washington, as we
have seen. How unlike those cities are we?

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This is the Nashville CBID (Central Business Improvement District) swallowed by Central
Park. If this map were drawn to population density scale you could not see the CBID at
all.

This is Nashville’s population density compared visually to New York City. In two pictures
we can see why New York City transit solutions are preposterous for Nashville.

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This is Nashville’s population density compared visually to Seattle.

As for the argument that this Transit Plan is not for today, it is for 10, 20, or 30 years
from today, we have shown that light rail does not reduce congestion. Why would it
suddenly start reducing congestion 10, 20, or 30 years from today?

When we say greener in the context of transit, what do we mean? We are chiefly talking
about what is the lowest level of GHG per passenger mile. Immensely heavy empty
buses and trains waste fuel and create much higher GHG than more efficient transit.
However, since government has such a lock on transit the figures are difficult to
compare. We have tried multiple times for years to get any information about capacity
utilization from the Metro Transit Authority. Repeated requests for information have
been ignored.

Because mass transit is supply driven, and not demand driven (buses and trains run
whether anyone is on them or not, whereas ride-hail/share, do not), it is natural to
surmise that mass transit has a disproportionately high-level of waste and pollution per
passenger mile—unless it is constantly running at high-occupancy. National statistics do
not support that mass transit runs at high-occupancy.

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Finally, as to the “we have to do something crowd” we would answer this way. When
the U.S. went to war with Iraq in 2003 it was in response to the nagging feeling that we
had to “do something.” Now, when we look back, many believe that doing nothing
would have been better than doing something. We have to do something is almost
never the right reason to act. Cities all over the U.S. are realizing that they over spent on
multi-billion rail projects, but are now burdened with debt, waste, intractable expenses,
and ever more congestion. Light rail is simply not working.

As for “permanent financing?” We do not want that either. Permanent financing simply
means a forever tax. Why would we want that? Besides, we do not even want a
permanent solution to our transit problem. Why? Because one does not exist. Bill
Purcell was mayor in 2006. This was before Uber, Airbnb, Tesla, Instagram, Google
Chrome, Bitcoin, Spotify, Autonomous Vehicles, the iPad, and the iPhone. Imagine the
multi-billion-dollar “permanent” pre-2006 solutions that were replaced by these
innovations.

What is permanent? Nothing that something better could not replace. The less
permanent the financing and the solution, the better, because then we have maximum
options and choices for the future.
--
This was produced by Andy Martin and Bruce Campbell

Andy Martin earned his economics degree from Belmont University, and MLAS from
Vanderbilt, University. He runs two money management firms, and is author of
numerous investment research papers and Dollarlogic, published by Career Press.
Bruce Campbell earned his degree in Civil Engineering, and MBA from Vanderbilt
University. He currently serves as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Content
Development at Empower Health USA.

Between the two they have lived in Nashville, New York City, Bridgeport, Ct., Atlanta,
Ga., and Manila, Philippines. They have spent a lot of time on public transit.

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* Let's Move Nashville TRANSIT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM DECEMBER 13, 2017
Capital costs in millions Page
Subtotal – Bus Program Initial Capital Expenses $992 30
Total Segment Costs LRT $4,362 31
O&M in millions
Total - Bus $49 33
Total LRT $50 36 Annually
BUS $1,041
LRT $4,412
TOTAL $5,453 Est of Cap costs + O&M first yr.
Bus as % of total capital + O&M costs 19%
LRT as % of total capital + O&M costs 81%

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