Mayor Throws Support Behind Nashville's $5.2 Billion Transit Plan

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry this week "unveiled a monumental proposal for a $5.2 billion mass transit system, the most expensive, far-reaching and complicated project in Metro history," reports Joey Garrison.

Planetizen last caught wind of this ambitious transit infrastructure investment package in August, after the Nashville Metro Transit Authority released a "High Capacity Transit Briefing Book" [pdf] to map out the prospective system. Now Mayor Barry is pushing for a May referendum "to approve via referendum raising four taxes to pay for the massive undertaking," according to Garrison. "Leading the way as a revenue generator would be a one-half percent hike to the sales tax that would jump to 1 percent in 2023. [The mayor has] also proposed increases to the city’s hotel-motel tax, rental car tax and business and excise tax."