Take Your Places, Everybody — It's Time for Another Transit Fight

A press release Tuesday afternoon from the newly created NoTax4Tracks PAC signaled that all the players have assumed their positions and Nashville can renew the fight over the city's transit future.

It's been nearly three years since The Amp, then-Mayor Karl Dean's proposed 7.1-mile bus rapid transit line, was officially declared dead after bitter fights on the state and local levels. The stakes are much higher this time around. The Amp required $174 million and was vaguely connected to future plans for a BRT network. The plan Mayor Megan Barry rolled out in October is a citywide system of light rail lines and busses that would cost $5.2 billion to construct — with a total price tag of $9 billion once other expenses are factored in — and 14 years to complete. And Barry's plan, largely funded by tax increases, will need approval from the voters. 

When The Amp died, Dean claimed a silver lining in the fact that his administration had started a serious conversation about public transportation (somewhat curiously, given that successful engagement with the public was a weak spot in the Amp effort and for the Dean administration in general). 

“I am proud that we have laid the groundwork for a future mass transit system in Nashville, and in doing so, raised the level of discourse around transit," he said at the time.

Well, let's find out if he was right. 

This time around, the two sides look largely the same. In one corner there is the mayor, most of the Metro Council, an assortment of Chamber of Commerce types and a contingent of business groups, the local universities and Corporate Citizens™️  like the Predators, HCA and, oh look, there's private prison giant CoreCivic. The coalition is gathered under the banner of Transit for Nashville, which announced earlier this month that it had acquired more than 30,000 signatures on a petition supporting the plan. In the other corner are people like Joe Scarlett, the retired CEO of Tractor Supply Company, as well as local auto dealer and Republican donor Lee Beaman — also known for his support of the infamous English Only amendment rejected by Nashville voters in 2009 and his leadership of the Stop Amp coalition several years ago — who is serving as treasurer for the NoTax4Tracks PAC, which announced itself yesterday. Former mayoral candidate David Fox, who lost to Barry in the 2015 runoff, has also come out in opposition to the transit plan, acting as a sort of surrogate for the PAC, although he is not an officeholder for it. In an interview with The Tennessean yesterday, Fox called Barry's plan a "boondoggle" and a "colossal mistake." (For reporters seeking quotes, the PAC also offered up former Metro Councilmember Emily Evans. [See Update])

Back when Fox was running for mayor, his focus when it came to transit was on cost and concerns about how a transit project might affect the city's debt. Early on in the campaign, he said Nashville should pursue a model whereby a private company builds a transit system that a municipality can lease, while charging user fees to cover its own costs. 

"Because how are we gonna pay for this stuff?" he said in a January 2015 interview. "Nobody is going to pay the taxes it would require to fund all this stuff, but we need it."

Later, during the runoff, he returned to the issue of cost in an interview with the Scene. 

"That is going to be the challenge here — if money were no object, then this would be fairly easy," he said. "I mean, you say, 'Well, let's just do the light rail kind of all over the place, and if it costs $8 billion, then we've got it.' "

That is essentially what Barry is proposing now, although she's not ignoring the cost. She and members of the transit coalition have been framing the likely May referendum on funding for her plan as an opportunity for voters to say, "I'm for transit and I'm willing to pay for it."

And that's the biggest difference this time around — the voters. Unlike the debate around The Amp, which often seemed to include public engagement solely so the coalition behind it could tout its efforts to engage the public, this plan will literally require the support of the public in the form of votes. Importantly, the two established "coalitions" will not represent all voters. There are currently scores of people in between. Some progressives, for instance, support mass transit in general and are openly turned off by an opposition led by the likes of Lee Beaman, but are nevertheless concerned by the implications of a sales tax hike that could disproportionately affect low-income Nashvillians. Others are concerned transit could exacerbate gentrification and displacement in some areas of town. The NoTax4Tracks camp seized on the proposed sales tax increase as well. 

The best news for the average Nashvillian — the one who isn't a member of the Downtown Rotary Club — is that this time around, it's really up to you. 

Update (7:00 p.m.) A clarification: Evans tells Pith she is not involved with the NoTax4Tracks PAC and that they were not authorized to include her name in the release.