Is the transit plan even about transit?

As I arrived at the Traffic + Transit Forum last Saturday I was greeted by the smell of fresh asphalt. It seems the South Precinct chose to repave the parking lot the same weekend Mayor O’Connell was there to try and win my vote for his "Choose How You Move" transit plan.

The irony of having to park in the grass didn’t escape me as I watched elderly constituents struggle to make their way across the front lawn. Before the meeting even started, the car-free utopian undertone was complete when a young volunteer handed me a Vision Zero pledge card to promise not to speed, and to follow traffic laws in order to help prevent traffic fatalities.

The presentation contained a litany of facts and figures packaged in a way to convince the audience that capital projects for the engineered environment were all part of “transit” — they are not. 

A recurring theme throughout was that traffic is a public health concern. I think that many of the engineering solutions are good, practical, and would help beautify many communities in Nashville, but it is not transit. It is disingenuous, and suspect, to tell people that they are voting for a transit plan when the only real transit included in the plan is for more bus service.

An interesting fact mentioned was that 6 percent of Nashville’s roads account for 59 percent of fatal and serious injuries. But rather than reengineering these streets and adding more law enforcement to reduce traffic violations the argument is for more taxes and billions in spending.

The most misleading thing however is that this entire transit plan is really about increasing revenues for the city so that they can expand their credit limit with the federal government and creditors. This point was clearly emphasized in their presentation. When you vote in November for this $6.9 Billion scheme (officially advertised as  $3.1 Billion) you’re allowing your Metro Nashville Government to have access to upwards of $1.5 Billion of your federal income tax dollars. How much more debt does Nashville, or this nation need? And for no real benefit to transit.

During the presentation, Michael Briggs, Director of Transportation Planning for Mayor O’Connell, said that the capital improvements would still continue even if voters reject the Transit Plan, just at a much slower pace than the “faster” 15 to 25 year pace. 

Briggs said that infrastructure is key to making transit (a.k.a. “buses”) work well. I fail to see how all of these capital projects fall under “transit” especially when it is very heavy on infrastructure that does not directly affect the operation of buses or any other people movers. Unless they are planning to install moving walkways like those at BNA, sidewalks do not move people; they are not transit.

Courtnye Stone, NDOT Director of Strategic Communications & Policy, reiterated that having a dedicated source of funding is key to accomplishing all of the Mayor’s goals. But if dedicated funding is the issue, why isn’t funding dedicated to these initiatives in the budgeting process? Budgets are public declarations of what the city values in terms of policy and programs. Use the budget process.

Why not just call this scheme what it really is: a tax increase that will put Nashvillians on the hook for decades of more debt payments that eat into the operating budget of our city, with no real value.

The mayor and his nonprofit mouthpiece, Neighbor 2 Neighbor, which is no longer a valid nonprofit in Tennessee, claim that you can save hundreds of dollars per month if you Choose How They Want You to Move, sell your car, and ride your bike to the bus station. I’d love to live in a walkable city, but Nashville isn’t one, $6.9 billion won’t turn it into one, and to beat that dead horse one more time - it's not transit. JASON WEAKLEY

⚖️ That Legal? Yesterday, Ben Cunningham, Nashville’s resident anti-tax crusader, made his way back into local headlines after Axios resurfaced his legal argument against Mayor O’Connell’s transit plan.  

This April, almost immediately after O’Connell released the details of his transit initiative,  Cunningham jumped on the Tennessee Star Report to point out what he saw as a glaring inconsistency in the fine print. “What [O’Connell’s] done is he’s put a lot of elements in this plan which are not mass transit,” he told host Michael Patrick Leahy. “There are many elements in this plan that are simply illegal…let’s hope that we can find a good attorney that will challenge this in court on behalf of Nashville taxpayers, because it needs to be challenged.” 

Over the last few months, Cunningham has put in some time talking to lawyers and experts in order to explore the city’s options. In spite of the mayor’s insistence that Choose How You Move complies with state law, Cunningham visited the Star Report once again this week and insisted that “Freddie Two-Tax” may have to rewrite his transit plan. It seems that though O’Connell’s proposal has been met with little opposition up to this point, that could change over the next three months. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

📀 Meta In 2021, they launched a probe into Facebook. In 2023, they demanded more answers. And yesterday, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn joined a press conference to push for the passage of their  Kids Online Safety Act. 

“This week, the Senate is taking a historic step in the fight to protect children online,” said Blackburn in a prepared statement she delivered on the Senate floor. “Last Congress, Senator Blumenthal and I introduced KOSA following disturbing reports that Meta leadership knew its platform Instagram is toxic for teenage girls—causing rising rates of eating disorders and mental health issues—but downplayed these harms in public.”

This isn’t the first time a Tennessean has held Meta’s feet to the fire., Last October, General Skrmetti led 42 other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against the tech giant.. In March, a chancery court judge rejected Meta’s request to dismiss the charges, allowing the case to move forward. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

DEVELOPMENT

• Buc-ee's is coming to Murfreesboro (Tennessean)
• Dallas company once again buys South Davidson apartment complex (Post)
• Pizza joint closes in The Nations (Post)

✹ REVIEW: KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024)

Gen Z hates the salacious. It’s become a truism as Hollywood sex scenes have declined 40% since the pre-9/11 days. Blame #MeToo or the psychological ravages of COVID, but cinema has become less raw and much more palpable as Focus on the Family and the brat behind the coffee counter now share an endgame more similar than one would have imagined. The new puritanism is not so much against sex, but discomfort as art that reminds us of our human foibles and aspirations just cuts too deep in the era of innocuous streaming. 

Thankfully, nobody seems to have told Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose ribald neo-Victorian hit Poor Things revived the arthouse box office and brought Emma Stone her second Oscar earlier this year. Lanthimos could have rested on all those laurels, helming a prestige cable series based on National Book Award winner or big-budget Nolanlike historical epic. But he’d much rather bring Stone on a return to the terrain of his leaner days when he was merely the abrasive malcontent of sly domestic dystopias like Dogtooth and The Lobster. Yes, Lanthimos is back six months after his biggest hit, but he’s also out for blood and on a quest to make audiences feel anything but complacency. And that makes Kinds of Kindness the most vital film of an already spectacular summer movie season. 

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

📙 Book Signing: West from the Fallen Wall by Ryan Lucas Henderson @ Elder's Bookstore, 12p, Info
+ hosted by The Pamphleteer

🧙 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Concert @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $64+, Info

🪕 Bluegrass Nights w/ Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p, $38+, Info

🎸 Sleater-Kinney @ Brooklyn Bowl, 8p, $20+, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
+ vet community here

✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: July 25-August 1

The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming releases, check out our 2024 Film Guide.

Deadpool & Wolverine The Merc with the Mouth officially joins the MCU after that exhausting half-decade Disney/Fox merger. This time, some multiversal rift leads to a bro out with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine chocked full of hilarious one-liners and, likely, the other classic X-Men cameos Marvel’s been teasing since the last Doctor Strange. Thanks to the strikes and the failure of The Marvels, this is the only official release from the comics giant on the schedule. Early reviews show it may well be a return to form. Now playing in theaters.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consensual Suicidal Person This French vampire tale about a teen vampire whose compassion keeps her from killing who falls for a suicidal boy when her parents cut off her blood supply looks like the mashup of Let The Right One In and Pretty in Pink we didn’t know we needed. Now playing at The Belcourt.

Amadeus Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning retelling of the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri gets the 40th anniversary 4K restoration it deserves. Now playing at The Belcourt.