Titans Game to screw up Thursday afternoon rush hour traffic

With a Tennessee Titans game scheduled for a 7:25 PM kickoff tomorrow at Nissan Stadium, authorities have decided to seal off some downtown streets and bridges at 4 PM.  The Woodland Street bridge will close at that time to everybody but pedestrians and shuttle buses (and, one presumes, bikes).  MTA buses that normally use that bridge are instead being redirected to the James Robertson Pkwy and Jefferson St bridges.

Additionally, the Korean Veterans bridge will close to car traffic heading into East Nashville as the game nears its end.  There are other MTA routes that will be on detour for (apparently) all day Thursday, but it’s not clear from the city’s press release what other streets will be closed.

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MTA keeps its promise to fix bus station bathroom

Two months ago, Music City Riders United (MCRU) posted a photo of the men’s bathroom at Music City Central, the downtown bus station.  The photo equated the vandalized restroom to the bathrooms at the old state prison, showing the missing stalls in both bathrooms.  The transit riders’ advocacy group’s photo caught the attention of MTA board members and a few local media outlets, and the MTA promised swift action.

Within a few weeks, Lamont Walters noticed that the MTA was putting up some temporary stalls in the men’s restroom:

Today, I went by and saw that the transit agency had completed its work, installing permanent stalls, hand soap dispensers, and new hot air hand dryers:

Men's bathroom at Music City Central

MCRU also reports that the MTA has promised cleaner bathrooms for both women and men.

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The old state prison, from the air, from the inside

The Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) put out a new video showing some infrequently-seen angles of the Tennessee State Prison.  Located just north of The Nations, this prison operated from 1898 (it was overcrowded from the very day that it opened) to 1992, when a settlement in federal court prohibited TDOC from ever using the facility as a prison again.  It was replaced by the nearby Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

The video was made “due to the abundance of interest in this property,” TDOC wrote in the video’s description.  “This film was done … in partnership with Those Drones, LLC to share the beautiful architecture with the citizens of Tennessee.”  The video, which is about 17 minutes long, doesn’t get to the inside until about the 7-minute mark.

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