Monday, Vanderbilt University issued a strong statement of support – along with a 501(c) (4) PAC called ‘Creating a More Mobile Community’ funded to the tune of $200,000 – for Mayor Megan Barry’s $5.2 $5.4 $9 billion transit plan proposal.
“We must match our collective ambitions for the future of Nashville with investments in our future prosperity,” said Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said is a statement. “A more connected Nashville through expanded transit benefits us all. Now is the time to ensure all members of the Nashville community have full access to the opportunities our vibrant city has to offer.”
The statement points out that the University has recently begun its transformation of West End Avenue to what it calls FutureVU, described as a “innovative academic and experiential center.”
Vanderbilt University Medical Center president Jeff Balser also voiced the institution’s strong support for “Mayor Megan Barry’s efforts to expand Nashville’s transit options.”
“The development of sustainable, flexible transportation options that promote a healthy, accessible environment for all is a centerpiece of our land use planning efforts,” Zeppos said. “When taken together, Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center are the region’s largest private employer. As such, we have an obligation, but also a tremendous opportunity, to have a positive impact on transportation in Nashville. The time to act, for all of us, is now.”
The Tennessean reports that Vanderbilt’s full-throated endorsement of the transit plan is unsurprising “given that it is among more than 100 organizations that have signed on to the Transit for Nashville Coalition.”
The PAC, which The Tennessean reports has ties to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, says they raised more than $1.3 million last week that they will use to fund campaign efforts to support Mayor Barry’s transit proposal.
[…] his nickname “Boondoggle Briley” for supporting the original Barry boondoggle–the $9 billion transit plan conceived of by Barry and the developers, lobbyists, attorneys, engineers, and architects who stood […]
I am in the process of changing everything medical away from Vandy,
Vanderbilt University, as I’ve written before, has become a useful fool tool for the socialist politicians, like Karl “Marx” Dean, Mayor Moonbeam and all the red-green NGO’s centered around Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition and the illegal alien hang-out, Casa Azafran. Forever and a day, the school was criticized for its lack of community involvement. Now, with Zeppos at its helm, Vandy, seems to be prominent in every political and social issue in Nashville.
It’s no surprise considering who has been teaching there for all these many years, socialists like Dan Cornfield, prof in the Sociology Dept., who’s a radical Alinskyite. (https://tennesseestar.com/2017/08/24/beyond-alinsky/) and husband of ACLU-TN head, Hedy Weinberg. Hedy’s father, by the way, was friends with Emma Goldman, the Russian communist/anarchist.
So Vanderbilt University, once celebrated as the “Harvard of the South” respectful of the laws, morals and conduct of the people of this nation, followed the ivy league in its rush to embrace the ideology of neo-Marxsts and Gramscians into PC multiculturalism post-modernism and its disregard for objective truth. (Like how much the Mayor’s proposed plan will cost the “little people” of Nashville who live and work here, not to mention the elderly living on fixed, pittance social security incomes). These concerns don’t bother the Vandyland elites as they have scads of money and power and, and anyway, they’re too busy congratulating themselves on their community activism.
I used to be proud of having gone to Vanderbilt and now, not so much.
The rail system will be another taxpayer funded transit system run by the labor unions. Just look at the metro buses.
So Vandy thinks saddling the entire population of Davidson Co with this boondoggle is a great thing. Their own students, who would use it, don’t pay a DIME for it — we will.
I learned all I need to know about these kind of “progressive” consultant driven solutions when we lived in ATL for 20 years. To see what is going to happen, look no further than MARTA. After decades it STILL costs millions of $ a year to Fulton Co taxpayers and ends at the county borders. NO other County surrounding it whose populations work in the city contribute. Their citizens use it (on a very small percentage) so how do other Counties take advantage? They build Park and Ride as close to the nearest MARTA station as possible, charge their residents very small fees to ferry them to the station. This exact same thing will happen here. A tunnel–what idiot thinks a 1 mile tunnel in that location is a good idea and isn’t going to be a boondoggle? No one with any sense BUT, to the “Progressives” who run this city now, they are dead set on this folly. This is why we just bought a house in another County and are moving after renovations — we don’t want to pay for a “progressive” Nashville. Let the hipsters in the Gulch pay for it–
I just hope the counties surrounding Davison County as wise as those surrounding Atlanta..
I contributed to No Tax 4 Tracks because with $billions on the line you can bet that the forces pushing this boondoggle will have all the money they need from those who stand to be the recipients of this windfall and we have to stop this NOW because it surely will be coming to the suburbs as well.
This move by Vanderbilt optimizes the failed, narcissistic, out of touch, “higher education” system in America! There are Vanderbilt students that take Uber from their dorms to class. Young adults want individualized, on-demand transit options NOT some over priced, fixed route, 19th century “hub and spoke” technology scheduled around some politician’s circadian rhythm.