I was less than a block from my apartment in Washington, D.C. on a cool morning in 2014, heading out for a run when everything changed. One moment I was moving through my neighborhood as I had countless times before. The next, I was on the ground. The driver who hit me reversed, maneuvered around me, and fled the scene.

The crash was terrifying, but it’s everything that followed that stayed with me: my family’s worry, the surgeries, two and a half years of physical therapy, and the realization that a single moment can reveal how quickly everyday travel can turn dangerous when systems fail to protect the people moving through them.

That experience is a huge part of how I think about transportation today. When the crash happened, I was already deeply engaged in the transportation industry. But becoming a victim underscored a truth that people experience every day: transportation is not abstract or academic. It shows up in the most ordinary and most vulnerable moments of daily life. And when our systems fail us, we still have to get where we are going. There is no alternate path.

In engineering, there’s a simple concept that explains this: the desire path. The best place for a sidewalk is where the grass has died, and the dirt already peeks through. That’s because people vote with their feet. Long before a plan is written or a budget is approved, people reveal their needs through their behavior. Well-worn paths are not accidents; they are signals.

Across the country, those signals are outpacing investment. Short-term needs often crowd out the long-term funding needed to maintain and modernize roads, sidewalks, bridges, and transit systems. Transportation infrastructure underpins economic growth and quality of life, yet it is often overlooked until it fails. And when it does, it undermines the value of other investments. Great education and healthcare policy only matter if people can easily access schools and hospitals.

Nashville is an example of the slippery slope that results in a city growing faster than it can invest. We’ve seen explosive growth here; in 15 years we’ve added 110,000 residents. That’s nearly 20 percent increase. At the same time, our annual visitors have increased roughly 50 percent, reaching 17 million. Yet by 2024, we were one of only four of the 50 largest U.S. cities without a dedicated source of local transportation funding. Infrastructure designed for a much smaller city was being asked to serve a rapidly growing one. Residents adapted as best they could, using mostly 70s-era infrastructure that was built almost exclusively for cars.

So, Nashville tried to change that. But it took multiple tries before we found success. The first attempt at dedicated transportation funding came in 2018, when 64% of voters rejected a transit referendum. There were many reasons, but much of it came down to voters not seeing tangible benefits in their daily lives. Signature projects like light rail corridors felt transformative to some, but seemed disconnected from the everyday trips people were already making to work, school, and the grocery store.

In the years that followed, our traffic got worse. In 2023 Forbes ranked Nashville’s commute the hardest in the country. The need for action was no longer theoretical; it was personal, experienced at red lights, missing sidewalks, and unsafe crossings in every corner of our city. And it was obvious, even to people who didn’t live here.

The 2024 referendum: something for everyone

Under Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s leadership, the 2024 referendum, a $3.1B plan called Choose How You Move (CHYM), took a different approach. Nashville opened the door to improvements designed to benefit everyone, no matter how they move. For drivers, the plan promised to upgrade nearly 600 intersections with connected smart signals, so traffic would flow more efficiently. For neighbors and families, it meant committing to 86 miles of new sidewalks, turning broken, missing segments into continuous paths that connect people to where they’re going. For transit riders, it meant more frequent service and longer hours on core routes. The program started where public need was already visible.

Choose How You Move committed Nashville to a specific project list, and we crafted an interactive map for Nashvillians to see every improvement promised, down to the individual street level. That transparency created a clear compact between residents and their government. In exchange for a half-cent sales tax surcharge, the city committed to delivering projects, turning need into defined action. We were voting with our feet.

On November 5, 2024, voters approved Choose How You Move with 66% of the vote – almost the exact margin by which the first referendum failed. People were ready for their community to better reflect the city that they knew they deserved. The result marked a turning point: informal signals became a formal mandate.

From referendum to ribbon cutting

Success at the ballot box marked the beginning, not the end, of the work. We had to deliver on our plan. The city advanced 11 foundational projects to kickstart the program, launched a free fare program called Journey Pass to make transit more accessible to people with limited means, and completed Nashville’s first-ever cash capital drawdown. These early steps were intentional. We had to scale up, and the first year was about visible action. We quickly began improving the reliability and frequency of transit services. Exactly one year after the vote we cut our first ribbon, unveiling a queue jump lane for buses to bypass stalled traffic on the city’s busiest transit route. It was a tangible signal that the commitment was real. In the next few months, we expanded WeGo’s fleet with brand new buses, and broke ground on the first CHYM-funded sidewalk. It fills a small but critical gap between a neighborhood and our busiest transit route, laying smooth concrete over the dirt-trodden paths – our desire path and our clear signal of need.

Early wins and long-term change

Our challenge now is balancing early wins, clear signs of progress, and long-term generational change. A cornerstone of the Choose How You Move program is the planned redesign of 54 miles of Nashville’s busiest corridors to accommodate high-capacity transit. Projects of that size take time, but they enable us to modernize roadways in a way that is befitting of a major American city.

Meanwhile, small milestones do more than check boxes. They signal accountability, build public confidence, and keep momentum. They also remind us that implementation isn’t just about engineering; it’s about the people behind the projects. We’re investing in storytelling alongside delivery: launching a monthly newsletter and producing digital content that demonstrates less visible investments, like the fiber that enables a citywide smart‑signal system. We meet quarterly with a 15-member advisory committee made up of citizens from all walks of life, who care about progress and help us communicate the latest updates. Visible, fast-moving improvements help reinforce trust as we advance the longer-term changes Nashvillians have long known they deserve.

Year one and counting

As I think back to waking up in an ambulance on that morning in 2014, I am reminded how narrow the distance is between policy and lived experience. Choose How You Move is a 15-year program, but when we succeed, we will have established a model that builds on itself year after year. This is a generational investment in Nashville. Plans become projects. And projects become safer, more reliable daily journeys, so hopefully others don’t find themselves in my situation.

For decades, Nashville residents signaled their needs. One year in, Choose How You Move is showing that when cities pay attention to those signals and voters affirm their commitment, real improvements follow. So come see us in Nashville. In the years to come, I think you’ll see a city that’s safer, more convenient, and more connected than the one you knew before.