Nashvillians will have the opportunity to vote on a new transit referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The announcement was no surprise. Murmurs of a referendum have circulated since well before Mayor Freddie O’Connell took office. As one of only four top 50 cities in the country without dedicated funding for transit, Nashville can only get dedicated funding through a referendum, which requires the mayor’s office to build out a plan and present it to the voters with a price tag attached.
In 2018, the $5.4 billion price tag on Mayor Megan Barry’s plan proved too much for Nashvillians to stomach, and 65 percent of voters said no. But concerns about traffic have only grown in the years since, with Nashville even topping a recent list of worst cities for commuting in the country, so the issue was at the top of voters’ minds when they elected O’Connell in September.
“Access to transit and commuting by bike were the keys to my own pathway to home ownership,” said O’Connell at a press conference Thursday morning where he announced his office’s decision to pursue a referendum. “More people deserve that opportunity. But my story shows how much of this isn’t about me. It’s about the people who live here and whether they can afford to stay here.”
The mayor was flanked by some of the city’s top transit experts, including WeGo CEO Stephen Bland, NDOT Director Diane Alarcon, transit authority chair Gail Carr-Williams and Vanderbilt’s director of transportation planning Michael Briggs, who was brought on temporarily by the mayor’s office.
O’Connell said that over the next six weeks his office will be engaging with the community, Metro Council and two advisory committees, one technical and one community-based, to finalize a transit improvement plan for Nashville, which he said will focus on giving Nashvillians an “all-access pass to sidewalks, signals, service, and safety.” That plan will be unveiled in March, and will include more details on the scope of the developments along with a price tag, which O’Connell said will likely be north of $1 billion. The 2017 Improve Act, which allowed cities in Tennessee to take transit plans to the voters, outlines several different taxes that cities can appropriate to put towards a transit project should voters support it.
“This program will give us the best chance to put more sidewalks into more communities beyond anything else we’ll do,” said O’Connell. “Not only is transit necessary, it is popular. According to data from Imagine Nashville … 74 percent of [Nashvillians] strongly agree that investing in city-wide public transportation is an important priority for our people.”
The plan will need to be approved by the Metro Council before it goes to the ballot.
Throughout the 2023 election season, mayoral candidates rarely got through an entire forum without having to say whether or not they would orchestrate a referendum, and O’Connell largely came across as the most pro-transit of the candidates. Among the “15 Fixes on Day One” listed on his campaign website, a frequent transit network appeared first.
On Election Day, when O’Connell beat Alice Rolli — who also believed the city needed a referendum — he announced the creation of three advisory committees to study how Nashville moves, works and grows. In November, those studies came back heavily recommending a November 2024 transit referendum. Because the presidential election also falls on Nov. 5, it is expected to be a high-voter turnout election, improving the chances of a successful referendum. The 2018 referendum was in May, and saw lower turnout.
Although O’Connell supported the 2018 referendum, he has always maintained that he had his reservations, citing the magnitude of the light rail plans, which called for tunnels under downtown. In November, he told reporters that he would be wary of including light rail in any new referendum, naming a line to the airport as the most likely use for light rail. On Thursday, O’Connell confirmed that the upcoming referendum will not include any light rail components. He also said that dedicated bus lanes are not currently on the table, but that his office is open to exploring that option, saying it is “odd” that a city as big as Nashville doesn’t have dedicated bus lanes already.
Although light rail to and from the airport isn’t on the table, O’Connell did say offering high capacity access to and from the airport is a top priority.
Transit referendums rarely pass on their first attempt. In fact, a study released by Think Tennessee in November found that most cities fail at a referendum at least once or twice before succeeding. Other cities, like Seattle, have failed a referendum once only to come back years later and succeed with an almost identical plan. It often comes down to running a campaign that earns trust through community engagement, the inclusion of nonprofits and Councilmembers, and a clear-cut message on how life will be better if the referendum passes. Many, including O’Connell on Thursday, have attributed 2018’s failure to Barry’s untimely departure from office following a scandal just months before the referendum.
“This is in many ways our last best chance to take a huge step forward as a city together,” said O’Connell. “This will be up to all of us.”