Creating Places: A Citizen Observer's Look at Nashville's Built Environment


Writer's Note: William Williams' interest in the manmade environment dates to 1970, at which point the then-young Williams started a collection of postcards of city skylines. The collection now numbers 1,000-plus cards. Among the writer's specific interests are exterior building design, city district planning, demographics, signage, mixed-use development, mass transit and green/sustainable construction and living. Williams began his Creating Places column with The City Paper in February 2005. The column in its original form was discontinued in September 2008 and reinvented via this blog in November 2008. Creating Places can be found on the home page of the website of The City Paper, at which Williams has worked in various capacities since October 2000.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Creating Places: Where's the interstate night lighting?

Within the southwest segment of downtown Nashville's inner-interstate loop, I've counted no fewer than 15 overhead light fixtures that fail to function during the night — a major concern for motorists. This has been a problem for years and I'm not sure who is to blame: TDOT or NES or both. To visualize, this is the stretch of inner-interstate loop between the Division Street exit and the Fourth/Second avenues exit, and includes a bit of I-65 (running alongside the Adventure Science Museum and south to Wedgewood). The darkness is almost spooky — not to mention unsafe.

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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2011 at 6:54 AM

    I too am bothered by this. The south loop isn't the only place where significant numbers of stret lights are out. I-65 in the 100 Oaks area and I-65 around Briley/Ellington/Dickerson also have significant numbers of streetlights out. I have tried contacting NES, who is responsible, but it does no good.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2011 at 9:30 AM

    The lack of maintenance is bothersome. If you can't maintain it, you shouldn't build it in the first place because it makes us like Port au Prince or some abandoned Rust Belt city. The question this begs for me is, Why do we apparently need to artificially light every square inch of our world from overhead to begin with? We have headlights, after all, and in rural areas where overhead lights are not provided, there is also lacking the ambient light pollution that an urban area provides. I say we save the money and stop erecting so many light poles we don't plan to maintain anyway.

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2011 at 6:03 AM

    It's not just the interstates. Street lights are out everywhere I drive. Sometimes two and three in a row. I would report them, but I can't jot down the addresses while driving. What I want to do is say, "Just get out after dark, take a bunch of replacements with you and start driving."

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2011 at 2:31 PM

    Street lights are just the tip of the iceberg... the whole inner-loop is woefully out of date and an eyesore. The cluster-f ck that is the junction with I-65 south was built in 1968, and has not been updated to account for the changes in traffic flow, not to mention the huge volume increase since then. TDOT has ignored this road for far too long!

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  5. AnonymousJanuary 25, 2011 at 12:44 PM

    Streey light are out not just on interstates. Large numbers are out on Hillsboro Pike, in Forest Hills, in Bellemeade. The problem seems to be that there's nobody in charge of checking them out in the dark, and nobody can tell which ones have failed during the day.

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  6. William WilliamsJanuary 27, 2011 at 10:27 PM

    Some places can get buy without strong night lighting, but Nashville's inner-interstate loop needs to be well lit. This has been a problem (in this part of the loop) for years now.

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  7. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2011 at 10:53 PM

    The Loop has been uglied by TDOT's ridiculous partial fences, abandoned and rusting light poles, and, worst of all, billboards, some of which overcompensate for the burned out streetlights by molesting and endangering motorists with their obnoxiously bright adverts. What could be a sublimely beautiful view of our skyline is instead more cluttered than a suburban teenager's closet. We must take no more pride in ourselves than any other Craptown, USA.

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