Nashville Transportation Should Rise Above Politics

Okay, folks. I suppose that we all now realize that The Boring Company, the principal owner of which is Elon Musk, now plans to build a Tesla-fueled tunnel connecting the Nashville Music City Convention Center with Nashville International Airport. The Tennessee Department of Transportation, under the direction of Republican governor Bill Lee, has steered this project into the realm of reality. 

Presuming you're reading this in the Nashville area, you may like it. You may not. But your political party allegiance should not be considered here.

Yeah, I get it: Many of the few active Democratic office holders left in this state of ours jumped on board the "Blue train" to raise questions and to basically declare the project a failure before it even jumped out of the gate.

Here is the upshot from many news sources, including The Tennessean: No burden on the taxpayers. Limited (if even existent) inconvenience during underground construction - even here in our state, which is known for its limestone underground and which has been declared unfit for underground transit such as subway trains.

But then there's the issue of partisan politics. If you've followed the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in recent years, not to mention the state of Tennessee, you know that the two entities don't get along.

It goes back to the time where our Metro Council ridiculously refused (in a Republican dominated state) to accommodate the bid of the Republican party to host its 2024 national convention in our city. The refusal sparked retaliation from Republicans in the state legislature a/k/a General Assembly. Republicans proposed new street names honoring prominent members of their own party, financial bills affecting our convention center, and a measure that shrinks the size of the Metropolitan Council in half. 

Some of this continues. Much of it has passed us by without consequence.

Democrats in Tennessee must be acquiring severe amnesia. Some of these politicians are lining up to run for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives recently vacated by Representative Mark Green of Clarksville. Forget it, folks. The Republican nominee will replace Dr. Green in Congress and will romp to election to a full term next year. 

Memo to everyone: Republicans control Tennessee government. State government is superior to local government - even if "local government" means Mayor Freddie O'Connell and the council of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County.

Everyone remembers that, when President Donald J. Trump took office again on January 20, 2025, Elon Musk joined him in an effort to trim back the size of the federal government. This effort was known as DOGE - the Department of Government Efficiency. 

So a lot of the Democratic angst over the tunnel is merely partisan politics. If you're a Democrat in Nashville, you need to refresh your memory of what has happened in the past 20 years. You're in the minority, and you're likely to be that way for a long time to come. Pretending that this is not the case won't help.

James A. Rose, Publisher.