Inside Nashville's Oddly Ugly Bus-Rapid Transit Debate

For a vivid illustration of the publicly financed project that's been dividing the city of Nashville for months, take a drive down Mayor Karl Dean's street in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood. There, a lone "AMP YES!" lawn sign is perched in the mayor's yard. A short spin down the same street, however, and signs broadcasting the reverse view — "STOP AMP" — are replete. Standing on wood frames and far larger than the supportive placards, the signs are nearly as ubiquitous as the historic Cape Cods that fill the neighborhood (they're also, it turns out, being bankrolled by one of Nashville's biggest auto dealers).

The Amp, a referential name in Music City, is the $174 million bus-rapid transit project proposed to link the western stretches of the city to East Nashville over a 7.1-mile span. It's the first in-earnest attempt at reliable mass transit in Tennessee, and it has been pitched as a way to keep pace with peer cities like Austin and Charlotte. Nashville is poised to add a million more residents in the next two decades, further snarling already-jammed travels along the busiest corridors. The hope is that the Amp, running in a bus-only lane and with priority at traffic signals, will, over time, help unclog commutes and improve quality of life.