Nashvillians will soon get a chance to weigh in on a Metro Nashville Council bill that would ban right turns at red traffic lights in parts of the city.
The bill’s main sponsor, District 30 council member Sandra Sepulveda, and Jacob Kupin, the council member who represents downtown Nashville, will host a public meeting about the proposal
with the Nashville Department of Transportation and other stakeholders 5 p.m. Sept. 22 at Cannery Hall.While the bill was up for approval on its second of three readings at the council’s Sept. 15 meeting, it was deferred to give time for the community meeting.
But before the deferral, it was also significantly narrowed from its original scope when council members adopted a substitute version that earlier in the week
had garnered backing from NDOT.
“This doesn’t affect one district, this affects the entire county,” Sepulveda said. “We have had so many pedestrian deaths, and a few seconds, quite literally a few seconds of people being late, I think is something that should not affect the possibility of saving a life.”
Here’s what’s in the substitute bill.
Narrowing the scope
When it was first filed, Sepulveda’s bill was incredibly broad.
It proposed eliminating right turns on red at intersections throughout Nashville’s dense Urban Services District, covering nearly 200 square miles of Davidson County.
The substitute adopted this week greatly narrows that scope, a plan Sepulveda signaled was in the works more than a month ago. Now, the bill as written instead targets intersections located within the footprints of two long-range plans, Connect Downtown and NashvilleNext, and within 500 feet of school zones.
The substitute bill notes that as it stands, 59 signalized intersections have already been identified and recommended for implementing the ban. If the bill ends up being approved in its current form, it asks NDOT to modify signals at those intersections within three months of the effective date of the ordinance.
NDOT would also have nine months after passage to identify and evaluate the hundreds of other intersections included within the smaller footprint for implementation and determine where right turns on red should remain permitted and where intersections ought to be modified.
Since the bill was deferred, it’ll return on second reading at the council’s next meeting set for Oct. 6.
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Learn where Nashville may ban right turns on red lights, how to weigh in
