On Monday afternoon, the Nashville Business Journal's Meg Garner tweeted this head-turning headline: "SCOOP: Mayor Barry's office explores underground transit for downtown."
It's classic Biz Journal. A huge-if-true story, blasted out on social media, that was and remains behind the paywall. As far as trial balloons go, the NBJ looks to be the go-to place for Metro insiders looking to launch them. In June, they reported that Mayor Megan Barry's administration was "exploring the sale of Nashville International Airport, as the city looks for ways to finance its $6 billion mass-transit overhaul." A couple weeks later, they reported that the administration was backing off the idea.
That story got people talking, but the notion that underground transit was even being considered was more surprising. Incorporating a subway-style option into Nashville's mass transit plan has always been said to be unfeasible due to the massive cost of dealing with the massive layer of rock under our city streets. In fact, the NBJ itself reported on a Nashville Next report released in 2015 that addressed the question:
"The geology and geography of the Middle Tennessee region prohibits the construction of subway-type mass-transit systems,” the NashvilleNext report states. “The hard bedrock and preserved, forested hills of the region make underground transit cost-prohibitive.
Yesterday's story, which cites "multiple sources familiar with the matter," notes the same issue. Garner writes that "it is not yet clear if going underground in downtown is financially feasible, as it would require potentially costly drilling techniques to cut through the city's limestone bedrock."
So, this isn't gonna be a thing then, right? Metro Council members Freddie O'Connell and Jeremy Elrod suggested the consideration of such a plan was news to them, with somewhat puzzled tweets:
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We asked the mayor's office and got this statement:
"Metro has a team of engineers working to develop a comprehensive transit plan for Nashville. One aspect of this plan will be connecting the system downtown, and the engineers and planners are exploring the economic, engineering, and logistical feasibility of multiple ways of achieving this goal. At this point, the plan is still being drafted and final decisions have not been made."
