Nashville has chance to ‘Choose How it Moves’

Nashvillians are unfortunately no strangers to gridlock. Commuters in Music City spend an average of 56 hours in traffic annually — that’s more than two full days wasted every in traffic year. Nashville ranked as the 12th worst city in the U.S. for congestion in a recent study, and Forbes has dubbed Nashville as the city with the hardest commute.   

All that time stuck behind the wheel has a real impact. It costs drivers nearly $1,000 a year, and it hurts our health, our climate, and our communities. Yet Nashville offers few alternatives to driving, ranking behind most cities in access to transit and walkability.  

But on November 5, Nashvillians will vote on the Choose How You Move proposal, which provides an opportunity to transform how people in Middle Tennessee get around.  

Transforming transportation in Nashville 

The Choose How You Move proposal takes a comprehensive approach to reducing traffic and improving how people get around the city, no matter how they travel.   

Among other things, the proposal would:  

• Create new rapid bus lanes and increase frequency of bus services. 

• Make safety improvements at the city’s most dangerous intersections. 

• Build more than 80 miles of new sidewalks and over 30 miles of new or improved bike lanes. 

• Open 12 new regional transit centers to allow users to move around the city faster.  

• Install hundreds of “smart” traffic lights that would synchronize the system to reduce the amount of time drivers spend in traffic, especially during rush hour. 

These improvements would be funded by a one-half of one percent sales tax increase, paired with federal dollars from programs Nashvillians are already helping fund through federal taxes. Nashville is currently the largest city in the nation without dedicated funding for transportation.  

“As Nashville continues to grow, traffic goes from bad to worse. Choose How You Move is our chance to invest in a better quality of life for the whole city and ensure that, no matter how we get around, Nashvillians can do it faster and more safely,” SELC staff attorney Trey Bussey said. 

Hitting the brakes on dangerous climate pollution  

Across the South, transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions that worsen the impacts of climate change. Nashvillians are already dealing with these impacts through increased flooding, rising temperatures, longer droughts, and more extreme storms. 

Given their outsized contribution to climate change, lowering emissions from cars must be a top priority for the region in the fight against a warming planet. 

“We are at a critical moment in the fight against climate change. This proposal is a huge step toward getting cars off the road and their climate-warming pollution out of the air,” Bussey said.  

And greenhouse gases aren’t the only things fossil fuel-burning cars pump into the air.  

Choosing cleaner air  

As temperatures soared into the triple digits this summer, Nashville commuters were greeted with electronic signs that warned of poor air quality and urged drivers to reduce trips. That’s because pollution from cars is a primary contributor to ground-level ozone—better known as ‘smog.’ Smog makes it harder to breathe and can lead to increased rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.  

Gas-powered cars also release particulate pollution, which can cause heart and lung problems. Nashville is already on track to exceed national, health-based limits for a particularly dangerous pollutant known as PM2.5.  

“We know there is a direct tie to the number of cars on the roads and the quality of the air we breathe,” Bussey said.  “Anybody that has spent long periods of time near a highway knows the impact car exhaust can have on your breathing. The best way to fight vehicle pollution is reducing traffic and providing safe and reliable transportation alternatives. Choose How You Move does that by making it easier to walk, bike, or take the bus.” 

Vehicle pollution is often worse in communities of color that have been unfairly targeted by highway construction. Predominantly Black neighborhoods in North Nashville, for example, are surrounded by highways and have elevated rates of asthma and heart disease. 

“North Nashville has more air pollution than many other parts of the city because of the increased vehicle traffic caused by the interstate,” Kalen Russell said. Russell is the Advocacy Manager for The Equity Alliance, a Tennessee-based nonprofit that works to build economic and political power in predominantly Black communities.  

A “huge opportunity” for equity

Buses stop and start nearby as Russell sits outside the newly opened Dr. Ernest Rip Patton, Jr. North Nashville Transit Center, named for a leader of Nashville’s civil rights movement. The Choose How You Move proposal aims to build 12 more of these transit centers.  

“Hubs like this, this is like a community center now where people are able to gather and meet,” Russell said.  

This is a huge opportunity for the Black community and for Nashvillians as a whole to be able to have a stake in how the city looks moving forward.

Kalen Russel, The Equity Alliance

And the transit centers are much needed across the city—especially in communities of color and low wealth communities that have historically been left behind when it comes to transit planning, despite being the areas that often rely on public transit the most. The Choose How You Move proposal also aims to improve pedestrian safety, expand bus destinations, and decrease wait times in those communities. 

“We should be able to choose how we move to get from place to place without sacrificing our immediate and long-term well-being in the process,” Russell said.  

“This is a huge opportunity for the Black community and for Nashvillians as a whole to be able to have a stake in how the city looks moving forward.”