By SAM HATCHER
The Wilson Post

NASHVILLE – “The Power of Ten,” an event convened in Nashville Wednesday to promote discussions about regionalism and specifically mass transit as it relates to 10 counties comprising the core of Middle Tennessee, attracted nearly 500 area leaders including several from Wilson County and ended in a call for action for all counties participating.
 
Staged by Cumberland Region Tomorrow, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Nashville Area Planning Organization, the summit, as the event was described, featured nationally recognized experts and political leaders who offered advice and observations to help inform attendees on how to deal with issues involving mass transit.

The event ended with Nashville Mayor Karl Dean asking that leaders from the 10-county region join together and form a task force to consider a major mass transit plan that could include light rail, rapid bus service, or possibly a downtown street car service.

Speaking candidly to the group, Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Patrick McCrory said a first step in presenting a convincing argument for mass transit or better planning within a community is “creating a vision.”

McCrory, who has been mayor of Charlotte for some 20 years and is viewed as a fiscal conservative, said when his administration launched a $500 million light commuter rail system several years ago, the project almost cost him his political career. He told about how he had to fight first with the state legislature and then campaign with local voters in order to get a half-cent sales tax passed to fund the operation of the rail system which began service in his hometown about two years ago.

McCrory told detail after detail about how the “vision” of the light rail system was portrayed in Charlotte adding that “creating the vision” is the first important element in moving forward with a project of such magnitude.

 “It is not a straight line of steps that you must go through to get to your ultimate goal but a circle that goes around and around and around,” McCrory said, adding that citizens must understand that “15, 20, 30, 50 years in the life of a city is nothing.”

The light rail system in Charlotte was the most expensive mass transit project ever in the history of North Carolina.

McCrory was the first of several speakers for the almost five-hour session that included representatives from Austin, Texas; Denver, Col.; and Washington, D.C.
 

Nashville attorney Charles Bone served as the moderator for the event. Bone, a charter member of the Cumberland Region Tomorrow board, explained the theme “The Power of Ten” noting that “though one standing alone can do great things, it can’t compare with the ‘Power of Ten.’”

He said hosts of the event were “uniting the region’s 10 counties to better address the challenges and opportunities that our region shares. While each county and its leaders can accomplish good, our 10 counties working together can accomplish so much more.”

Nashville’s mayor made it very clear that mass transit is a topic that is high on his list of priorities.

“I want it,” Dean said in reference to a regional mass transit system or plan and called on leaders from the participating counties at the summit to create a group that will formulate concrete plans for mass transit that people actually want and would use.

He urged leaders to be “bold, not afraid and push forward fast.”

Michael Skipper, executive director for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, briefed the audience on growth in Middle Tennessee and projections for growth in the future. Skipper’s message was that it is now time to be assembling a plan for mass transit to serve Middle Tennessee because of the growth that is anticipated in the region for the next couple of decades. He noted that in 1965 there was a population of 750,000 in the 10-county region and that today the population for the same area is 1.7 million and is expected to climb by an additional million by 2035.

Skipper said traffic congestion among counties in the region is “getting worse and commutes are getting longer.” According to Skipper, the 10-county, Middle Tennessee region will be larger than Denver in two decades.

The objective of the summit was to gain regional consensus and commitment among key public and private leaders to work collaboratively on defined steps for the planning, funding and implementation of a Regional Transit System for the 10-county region.

MainStreet Media CEO Sam Hatcher may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .