Medium to large U.S. cities like Nashville are uniformly over-paved car-centric landscapes with a lot of work ahead in providing more pleasant settings.
In November, a panel of “transportation demand management” experts convened and, in a follow-up report (PDF) released today, they recommend essentially a redo – a fundamental rethinking of ways TDM strategies could improve Nashville’s entire transportation system.
In many ways, this is the perfect time for such a brainstorm. The city rejected a major transit expansion but has since introduced Nashville Connector, a transportation demand management unit within its city planning department, which is where many of the recommendations could be implemented.
TDM strategies are typically more affordable in the short term than infrastructure projects, focusing on better uses for existing infrastructure, and can be very cost-effective in the long term because of the many societal benefits they bring. The report notes that initiatives like the Nashville Connector and various projects at Vanderbilt University have begun to increase awareness about transportation options. One recommendation is to form a statewide TDM advisory committee to provide focus and oversight across entities like metropolitan planning organizations and transit agencies. That committee could also:
- provide guidance on targeted marketing
- prioritize how federal funding (typically from the Federal Highway Administration’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program) can be used, which could include public-private partnerships, and
- provide guidance on best practices for issues like commuter policies, employee incentives, equity, and parking pricing.
If this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. Not only do places like Nashville have woefully inadequate infrastructure and amenities for people to build loyalty to mass transit, biking, and walking, but, without TDM, residents wouldn’t even think of these options in the first place.
“Education and lack of basic information was the most identified barrier to adopting a comprehensive TDM strategy for the Nashville region,” notes the report. “Starting with a simple universal message that clearly identifies the problems and provides solutions the community supports – which can be tailored to different audiences – will make the spread of information more efficient and effective.”
Other findings by the group were about Nashville but would likely hold true for any other similarly sized city. Public and private entities and rural, suburban, and urban groups have a tough time working together (in Nashville’s case, people on buses have to ride downtown before they can get to other parts of the region). “Status quo” habits and policies continuously reinforce car culture, which means education and marketing efforts, ideally alongside infrastructure investment, will need to be really strong.
Because of the existing lack of mass transit and car culture, the experts determined that the promotion of telework, carpools, vanpools, biking, and walking are the places to start. Amenities at work like showers and lockers are also ways businesses can advance the effort without relying on infrastructure investment. TDM efforts show their value when they can measurably clear up misperceptions about key issues like:
- the detrimental effects of free parking
- how businesses are hurt by the lack of alternatives to personal car trips, and
- how engineers and policymakers often don’t have multimodal perspectives, which are needed to form good policy.
The findings note that the Chamber of Commerce, perhaps in partnership with Nashville Connector, could play a particularly pivotal role in the city by helping set up a competition between companies. One starting point could be the city’s 13 colleges and universities, only four of which participate in transit pass programs.
The panel was organized by The Center for TDM, a non-profit arm of the Association for Commuter Transportation.