Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s multi-billion dollar transit plan was approved by voters on Tuesday, according to unofficial election results published by the Davidson County Election Commission.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting at 10:30 p.m. CST on Tuesday night, the transit plan was approved by a total of 183,108 votes (65.5 percent) while a total of 96,305 votes (34.5 percent) were cast against the plan.
O’Connell’s transit plan, “Choose How You Move: An All-Access Pass to Sidewalks, Signals, Service, and Safety,” will be funded by a half-cent increase in the city’s sales tax to construct miles of new sidewalks, bus stops, transit centers, parking facilities, and upgraded traffic signals throughout Nashville.
While the plan is estimated to cost $6.9 billion over the project’s lifetime, the language that was approved for the general election ballot described the plan as a $3.1 billion project.
In addition to being funded by a half-cent increase to the city’s sales tax, the transit plan will also leverage federal grant money as a revenue source, which critics have warned will turn Nashville into a “ward of the federal government.”
Critics have also pointed out the lack of consideration of public safety surrounding the transit plan, specifically its 24-hour, seven-day-a-week bus service which was not proposed with any plans to implement additional police presence or other security measures.
The overall legality of the transit plan has also been called into question as critics have said that specific elements of the plan appear to be illegal under the 2017 IMPROVE Act.
Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, argued that the transit plan’s funding of additional incentives outside of shared mass transit via tax increase—including traffic lights, sidewalks, and the purchase of property for “affordable housing”—is not permitted under the IMPROVE Act.
As results were coming in on Tuesday, O’Connell celebrated the passage of the transit plan, telling a watch party crowd, “After all these years we have secured dedicated funding for transportation and infrastructure…Tonight I am extremely proud to be a Nashvillian with hundreds of thousands of Nashvillians who got this right.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “WeGo Bus” by WeGoTransit.
Mass Transit is a crime carrier. Its major use is transporting crooks to and from the ghetto.. If you don’t believe and your white, go for a ride on one..
You see and experience things you never thought existed in little ole Nashville ……Liberals slowly but surely will destroy Nashville like they did Memphis you dummies ….
Freddie the Freeloader got his wish. Now all of Nashville will be paying for this disaster forever. What a crime. And it passed using a lie about the costs.
Not this voter or my family. Sales tax is too damn high already.
You’ll never see Freddie or Colin Reed riding a bus.