Nashville Approves Major Transit Plan to Keep Music City Moving Forward

Finding better ways to move our city's many visitors and residents from venue to venue, neighborhood to neighborhood and across our growing city has been a goal of Nashville's for years.

Now, that transportation goal is in sight.

Nashville is moving forward in a major way with its strong approval of the “Choose How You Move” transit plan introduced by Mayor Freddie O'Connell .

“Choose How You Move” features a variety of improvements to the city’s traffic infrastructure, including expanded bus service, new sidewalks and modernized traffic signals. Mayor O’Connell introduced the plan earlier this year and advanced it to the ballots to be decided by the voters last week.

“It is a historic moment for our city having secured dedicated funding and our team is ready to go,” O’Connell said at a courthouse press conference last week after the votes were counted. “Today we feel excitement because voters agreed we deserve a transportation system befitting a major American city.”

With the approval, Nashville joins its peers among the nation’s largest cities with a dedicated funding source for mass transit. By a nearly two-to-one margin, voters approved a half-cent increase on sales tax as the major source of funding for the plan, which will take effect in February.

The first phase of the upgrades, likely to focus on new sidewalks and synchronized traffic signals, are coming during the first quarter of 2025 New bus routes are planned for the final quarter of 2025, and redesigning busier roads to ease traffic congestion will come later.

Per The Tennessean, the “Choose How You Move” will include a total of 86 miles of new or upgraded sidewalks, 592 redesigned traffic signals (“smart signals”), 285 upgraded bus stops, 12 new transit centers, 54 miles of high-capacity transit corridors — including rapid transit routes for buses — and an 80% increase in total WeGo bus service hours, including 24-hour service leading to a decrease in wait times.

“Now for the next generation, we will all enjoy the things we deserve: sidewalks, signals, service and safety,” O'Connell said on Election Night, referencing the four primary components of the plan.

“Transit has only become more popular and the need for it has only become more urgent,” O’Connell said at the time of the initial announcement earlier this year.

The Nashville Stars join the broader community in thanking Mayor O'Connell for his leadership. With this growing pool of support, Nashville is well-positioned to serve residents and visitors, commuters and sports fans, offering a memorable experience wherever they travel in Music City.