Two dozen people gathered Thursday for the inaugural meeting of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s Technical Advisory Committee, one of two transit initiative advisory committees meant to inform a forthcoming transit referendum.
The TAC meeting brought together planners, transit professionals and policy wonks, about half of whom came from either WeGo or the Metro Planning Department. The other group — the Community Advisory Committee — held its inaugural meeting Feb. 15. O’Connell intends the TAC to focus on technical aspects of the plan, while the CAC helps refine community engagement.
Group visioning exercises showed broad alignment on vague goals like increased safety, connectivity, forward-thinking planning and modernized infrastructure. Committee conversation, which lacked a clear goal or deliverable, turned quickly to major topics of bus rapid transit and light rail.
“Are we as a group making a decision that we’re never going to have high-quality rail transit as a city as we grow to 3 million people?” asked Erin Hafkenschiel, president of think tank ThinkTennessee. “I think it’s really important for us to have that conversation.”
Throughout the two-hour meeting, Hafkenschiel did her best to have that conversation despite pivots from Kendra Abkowitz, the mayor’s sustainability chief, who became TAC’s de facto facilitator. Hafkenschiel moved to the TAC from the eight-person committee that advised the mayor on transit during his fall transition. Several years ago, Hafkenschiel oversaw the unsuccessful Let’s Move referendum, which presented several light-rail lines around Nashville, as the city’s director of transportation and sustainability.
O'Connell effort to focus on 'sidewalks, signals, service and safety'
The topic remained front-of-mind for the latter half of Thursday’s discussion, drawing comments about cost awareness from Vice Mayor Angie Henderson and incremental development from Jessica Dauphin, CEO of the Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee.
The group discussed relative tradeoffs between bus rapid transit and light rail, two major tracks for O’Connell’s forthcoming plan, before questioning whether they could even discuss tradeoffs without cost estimates from the mayor’s office.
“It’s hard for us to make a decision, because we don’t have the cost estimates in front of us,” Dauphin said. “We don’t know what the total costs we’re aiming for is. Without knowing our budget, it’s hard to conceptualize what our actual projects would be.”
Abkowitz offered no response. No one close to the mayor offered an estimate or a date by which to expect an estimate. Committee members wrestled with a dependency loop: Do we need solid plans to guide our budget? Or a general budget to guide our plans?
Toward the end of the meeting, Eric Hoke of the Civic Design Center brought up the referendum’s looming political considerations.
“I’m a huge rail guy," said Hoke. "I love the rail. I just want us to concede the political costs for that. I want to see a rail. I’m just afraid of the outcomes should there be a rail in a plan.”
Hafkenschiel picked up on the reference to the failed 2018 effort for light rail under Megan Barry. “Just because the city said they weren’t ready for five light-rail lines and a downtown tunnel does not mean they’re not ready for one light-rail corridor to prove what it could look like for our city and for our future,” she responded.
The mayor has said to expect a completed plan ready for voter review by the end of March.
