Open lanes and a steady, heavy foot will get you from the parking lot of Kroger on Gallatin Pike to the sliding doors of St. Thomas West Hospital in 13 minutes 10 seconds.
During the morning crush it takes around 20 minutes — close to 30 with bad traffic.
By contrast, it takes Venita Stokes at least 50 minutes — usually more — to make the same journey.
Venita rides the MTA.
On a Tuesday morning I abandoned my car in the parking lot of the Kroger at the corner of Gallatin Pike and Eastland Avenue and got on the 7:15 No. 56 bus. St. Thomas Hospital was my final destination as the Scene's editors asked me for a firsthand account of the current Amp route, Mayor Karl Dean's proposed bus rapid transit system. Because there aren't any Park and Ride stations, I substituted the Kroger parking lot for the exact Five Points Amp starting point. The substitution was suggested to me by an MTA employee.
The Amp, if successful, would provide dedicated Park and Ride lots.
Before boarding I chatted with veteran MTA riders April Miller and Anita Parmer. Their cars kept mine company in the grocery store's lot, where they know they have a guaranteed spot.
"I don't [drive] because I work for the state and our parking lot is a half a mile from the building," Miller said. "I'd rather take the bus."
Parking also pushes Parmer onto the bus.
"Parking is extremely high downtown," she said.
Point taken.
When the No. 56 pulled up exactly at 7:15, I, the rookie, respectfully boarded last.
I stepped into a packed bus, standing-room only. Toward the front I saw a man buried in a book; on my left, a young woman with chest tattoos and pink headphones; on my right, a kid with one Java Monster energy drink in his hand and another in a mesh pocket on his backpack.
At the East Nashville Magnet School stop a large contingent of riders disembarked. Few people boarded between the school and Music City Central station, where the rest of us hopped off to make our connections or venture off into downtown.
I had seven minutes to make my next bus, the No. 5, which takes off from the station's second level.
While waiting, I observed surely one of the most immaculately groomed mustaches to ever grace public transit. Once we boarded, I spoke with its owner, Walt Bieschke.
"Going to work," he told me. For Bieschke, that's Vanderbilt University, where he is the graduate program's admissions director. He takes the bus two or three days a week.
Like Parmer and Miller, Bieschke has a car and acknowledges its convenience. "There are some days I like to get home a little earlier," he said, explaining why he often chooses to drive.
Riders like Bieschke are at the heart of the debate by the Amp advisory committee. Traffic is bad along West End, where he works for the largest private employer in the city. It will likely get worse, with or without the rapid bus system. Finding a solution convenient enough to induce Bieschke to ride every day — whether it has dedicated lanes or not — is crucial to solving traffic problems on this busy corridor.
After Bieschke left us, I turned to speak to the woman who had been traveling with me since the Kroger stop, Venita Stokes.
Stokes is a medical assistant at St. Thomas Hospital and lives in East Nashville. She is the most seasoned rider I spoke to, having spent a decade navigating the MTA.
"When they first started they only had the express, but now they have the BRT [lite] and that's helped too," Stokes said. "They're working on at it."
Despite all of MTA's progress, Stokes' commute, from start to finish, still takes nearly an hour. Like the others I talked to, she also owns a car, and drives it when its convenience cannot be ignored. For her, that's when the coldest weather hits in winter.
Exactly 50 minutes after I boarded at Kroger, at 8:05, Stokes and I alighted, stepping onto the curb in front of St. Thomas Hospital.
Everyone I talked to about the project, even those excited about it, were quick to qualify their opinions and acknowledge the negatives: potential traffic snarls, the animosity it's being met with, problems with the route.
Even Stokes, whose bus commute would be shortened by nearly two-thirds, lamented its impact on traffic.
"It's something I would use, I'm excited about, but I understand it's going to bog down traffic," she said. "If they could come up with some perfect way of still doing The Amp, making it where cars could still use the road, that would be perfect."
If The Amp is going to turn riders into the advocates it needs, people likely have to see it as more than trading one inconvenience for a lesser one.
Stokes' decade on the MTA hasn't given her any greater insight. "I just don't have that answer," she said.
But it gave me something to think about as I rode the MTA back to East Nashville — and my car.
Email editor@nashvillescene.com.
