Nashville’s new mayor discusses execution of transportation plan

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Nashville’s new mayor, Freddie O’Connell spent part of his first day on the job talking to WSMV4 about getting Nashvillians where they need to go.

After a late night of celebration and an early morning of packing kid’s lunches, O’Connell said he was ready to hit the gas and he made it clear: tackling the city’s long-standing transportation problem is one of his top priorities.

“I mean if you look at the traffic reports from just early this morning, it was an hour commute in from Smyrna. The I-24 corridor was a mess,” said O’Connell.

O’Connell wants community transit centers all around town so people don’t have to go downtown before actually heading toward their destinations.

He plans to invest in technology to reduce congestion. O’Connell said he wants more sidewalks and a way for people to get to and from the airport.

“You fly into most other major American cities, and you land, and you can get to the city very easily using transit,” said O’Connell.

Oconnell said his plan will cost a fraction of the one that failed in 2018 and one major difference is they will focus on buses, not lightrail.

“It’s very expensive. It tends to be very disruptive from a construction standpoint,” said O’Connell.

As for lessons learned, he said taxpayers don’t like surprises.

“Nobody was expecting a billion-dollar tunnel downtown. Our transit plan would not have that,” said O’Connell.

But O’Cconnell has been pushing for some of these changes for years and we wanted to know how he actually plans to get it done.

He said one major change is that he’s now the mayor.

“At this point, we’re going to be able from the top to say, ‘this is what we’re doing. This isn’t a request from a neighbor. This is what we’re doing,’ and I think that will make a huge difference,” said O’Connell.

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