SLC serves as transit, immigration example to Nashville

SLC serves as transit, immigration example to Nashville

(KSL Photo)


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — Nashville, Tennessee, is looking up to Utah’s capital as a city that’s paving a path it intends to follow.

Projected to grow by 1 million people by 2030, Nashville is facing growth trajectories and grappling with social issues similar to those Salt Lake City is currently tackling. So 120 Nashville leaders met with local leaders this week to follow Salt Lake City’s lead, especially regarding transportation, immigration and public engagement.

“Nashville and Salt Lake have a lot of similarities, but in some key areas Salt Lake is doing things we can learn from,” said Nashville Chamber of Commerce CEO Ralph Schulz. “It’s setting an aspirational target.”

Business and transit heads, educators and other local government leaders joined Nashville Mayor Karl Dean in visiting Salt Lake City. For 24 years the Nashville Chamber has taken yearly trips to learn from influential cities — including Seattle, Denver, Toronto and Vancouver. This year it was a fitting time to pay a visit to Salt Lake City, Schulz said.

“We’re both rapidly growing areas, and we face the same issues of how do you sustain and improve quality of life without killing the goose that laid the golden egg,” said Steve Bland, CEO of the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker met with the group on multiple occasions to discuss the Utah capital’s development.


We're both rapidly growing areas, and we face the same issues of how do you sustain and improve quality of life without killing the goose that laid the golden egg,

–Steve Bland, CEO of the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority


“We’re honored to have representatives of the city of Nashville here and happy to share what we’ve learned in our work to make Salt Lake City the best place in the country to live, work and play,” Becker said. “It’s also a great opportunity to learn from these leaders about the challenges and goals that all prospering cities share.”

Throughout the week, the group listened to dozens of local Salt Lake leaders for insight on homelessness, immigration, education, city planning and, on Wednesday, transit, which is one of Nashville’s leading issues, Schulz said.

The Utah Transit Authority and Envision Utah are especially appealing to learn from, as they’re nationally considered as “gold standards” of transportation and public engagement, Bland said.

“When you look at transit, Salt Lake City is way ahead of us,” Bland said.

While Nashville has a bus system, it's seeking ways to expand its rail lines in similar respect to Salt Lake City’s model, which is notable because of the way the city was able to create a smooth and connected system and engage ridership, despite lacking a history for common public transit that cities like New York and Chicago have, Bland said.

“We’re looking to figure out the right way to get much heavier level of ridership,” Bland said. “Where UTA carries about 45 million people a year, we’re at about 10 million a year.”


It's always interesting to me that here we see the transit agency as a source of an enormous amount of criticism, but folks who look at what UTA has done here view it as almost an unachievable model.

–Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker


Becker said UTA is known around the rest of the country as "probably the most successful and the best transit agency in the United States," so it was not surprising to him that Nashville intends to follow its example.

"It's always interesting to me that here we see the transit agency as a source of an enormous amount of criticism, but folks who look at what UTA has done here view it as almost an unachievable model," Becker said.

With regards to immigration issues, Nashville leaders are also intrigued by the Utah Compact, a declaration of principles to guide Utah’s immigration discussion.

"I think people look at (the Utah Compact) and say, 'How, in a conservative state like Utah, did people manage to come together and act in a way where major differences were bridged?'" Becker said. "That I think has served us very well, and certainly distinguished us from not only some other localities and states around the country, but also from the complete dysfunction in Congress and their inability to address comprehensive immigration reform."

Schulz said he was sure Tennessee, with Nashville similar to Salt Lake City as a hot spot of diversity, would find similar success if it adopted a set of principles practically identical to the Utah Compact.

As for public engagement, Schulz called Envision Utah's survey system for regional planning a “great, sophisticated process” that he can see Nashville “trying to duplicate as closely as possible.”

“Envision Utah really reaches out to the community, but at the same time it really does its research," Schulz said. "It's very impressive."


Katie McKellar is a Dixie State University graduate with a bachelor of science in mass communication. Before interning at Deseret News, she reported and edited news content for Dixie Sun News, first as Photo Editor, then as Features Editor. Email: kmckellar@deseretnews.com

Related links

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

UtahPolitics
Katie McKellar

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast