NDOT presents Beach Bend traffic‑calming concept; vertical measures require 66% neighborhood vote

Amy Birch, a transportation engineer and consultant working with the Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT), presented a preliminary traffic‑calming plan for Beach Bend Drive at an online neighborhood meeting. Birch said the 80th‑percentile speed measured on the street was 37 miles per hour and that two‑way daily volume was about 730 vehicles, and she outlined vertical measures such as speed tables and cushions as well as nonintrusive alternatives like radar feedback signs.

The plan Birch displayed calls for a series of roughly nine speed tables spaced about 500 feet apart along Beach Bend Drive, between Old Harding Pike and Harpeth Bend Drive, with spacing and count adjustable based on community feedback and field measurements. "We measured the speed on Beach Bend at 37 miles per hour," Birch said, explaining that the 80th‑percentile measurement means 85% of traffic was traveling 37 mph or below during the data collection period.

Birch placed the concept in NDOT's broader traffic‑calming program, which is…