Dear Nasvhille

In the 18 months since I relocated here I have many highs and many lows.  I have frequently written about my issues adapting and assimilating into a culture not my own and to a city of which I had no previous experience or knowledge.  I came here in search of healing – physical and emotional – the former I am ongoing and pleased with, the latter has been put on hold.  Why?  Because what I have found is a city resistant to change and resentful yet oddly co-dependent upon outsiders.

I do not own a car and yet I have rented cars more than I have done in decades as even here car sharing as I knew it via Zipcar, Car2Go and RideShare does not exist here.  I see a type of car share available thru Enterprise but that is exclusively to State employees, so I walk and ride Metro as that is my main source of transportation.  I appreciate Metro and that the system is undergoing changes and upgrades with a Mayor who is a positive about public transport, so I work with what we got and it is not bad and could and should be better.  I have risked my life crossing streets and roads with no crosswalks nor sidewalks and I have been lucky, 300 people have not been so this past year.   The anger about such change is palpable and is centers around money and in a city that is undergoing as much gentrification as Nashville has the past 5 years the divisiveness is equally palpable.  And yes race is a factor but money governs the race on issue as it does color.

I live on 4th Ave S, one way that runs across the city towards the south end of county and intersects with many highway exchanges.  The cross street, Chestnut, is adjacent to the east-west connection of the city and is equally busy on a daily basis.

Behind my home is an upcoming area of Wedgewood  Houston and the bars, apartments and other facilities that run adjacent to the train tracks are new and growing businesses that once housed artists and others who understood in exchange for low rents they would have to tolerate the noise, congestion and other delays that the CSX train exchange just akin to the area causes.

But now they are leaving and the new are arriving. I pay 1800 dollars a month rent. Again, I don’t own a car which brings the why but more importantly the how when I am a Substitute Teacher in the lowest paying professions in the lowest paying districts in the region.  I am a writer in my down time and have been fortunate to find many who support the creative arts here that are not just about music and for them I am grateful but had I not resources and a willingness to compromise I would be living in box next to the tracks.

That said when one works along tracks the endless train noise is surreal.  I wear earplugs in my home 24/7 and when I have the windows open I have to wear additional ear coverage to protect my hearing.  The trains horns often are beyond the 140 decibels as stated by law and in turn often go longer than the 4 horn range they are to do at each crossing.  So ostensibly I hear 8 per run but often to be angry, punitive or just for laughs they ring them consistently through the crossings or up to 13 rings in a 5 minute time frame.   This does not include the vibration caused by the speed of the trains which often is excessive past the legal limits.  Again nothing surprises me with CSX as their financial problems are well documented so they do what they do regardless as they run unregulated and largely ignored here. 

Additionally the trains stop often with only one to two cars blocking the pass. Irony that is always at rush hours in the am or pm.  They can block for upwards to hours (yes as in plural) at a time to only a few minutes.  In that time frame I see cars backed up to the major crossing of Lafayette and watch School buses, Public Buses, Emergency Vehicles, Police and regular cars resort to some of the most bizarre changes in routes to sheer dangerous behavior, driving in reverse, turning around on a one way, on sidewalks, thru the park across the street all to divert.  We, the residents of the sole apartment building, are either trapped in our homes or unable to access our homes due to the backup.  We are on the fourth replacement of a Turn Only sign to the point the men decided to place it behind a stone wall so now for certain the cars have a clear sidewalk in which to drive.

I have watched cars try to outrace the trains and in turn get stuck on the tracks adding more delays and confusion.  My favorite this week was a Police car that turned on its blues after sitting pushing the far left lane to turn in order for him to re-route. When I have asked other Police about this they have informed me it is not their job.  So I have taken it upon myself to direct traffic, be verbally abused, threatened and harassed as well as thanked to get cars and people moving. Frankly the endless noise, the honking of horns the angry yelling  compels me to do this and not the kindness of my heart.  The waste of energy and air quality is another as I have been recovering from the other kind of healing which was the primary reason I came here and it has led me to be housebound by choice.  As a result it has enabled me to witness to some of the most troubling incidents and traffic seen most often on major highways on a daily basis.  No traffic reporter ever covers this and it is well worth a camera to see and hear what I do. 

On days when I have to work and need to go South I cannot as the bus is stranded with me.  I have to walk, get an Uber or find some other route to get to a job that ostensibly pays me barely enough to pay said rent.   That is my choice but I need to live close to a transit center and to Vanderbilt to access my medical care.  And to move again the costs would not be offset as the rents are largely the same throughout the city in this area. 

There are many potential solutions to some of the problems that exist.  A Silent Zone mandate that could be evoked at night and could be passed via  resolution through the City Council and on to the legislature. There are the same with the 20 minute rule that stops blocking of intersections. And all of it can begin through the local officials that govern the city. But like the schools should I want respect in Nashville I need to be from Nashville.  I am an outsider and I am not worthy of respect nor attention. I see it in the schools from the Staff to the Students and they wonder why there is a crisis in them but that is for another blog at another time.

The desire to turn the Fairgrounds south of my home to a major Soccer stadium is laughable. One way out one way in when you live on 4th Ave S.  There are too other ways to resolve this but again my voice is not heard.  I am trouble, difficult, confrontational.  Live with it or should I take my degrees, my education, my training and my money and taxes with me to where they will both respect and hear me?

I see my Doctors next week and I plan on changing my course of treatment to accelerate my healing and I can write anywhere. I have me the wonderful people of Ingram and they have already inspired me to go beyond what I believe and that I can do anywhere.

I go now to the Festival of Books with the hopes to be there as a Writer but also as a Visitor.  The reality is that Nashville doesn’t want people like me here – Pro transit, sidewalks, pro education and public schools and someone who cares and who has the audacity to ask questions and expect answers.

I have taken to Twitter to air my complaints repeatedly to the Mayor’s office who told me to contact CSX directly. Been there done that and got nowhere but thanks.  I have contacted Colby Sledge’s office, my representative with regards to the problem and sent him film of what it like to live adjacent to this literally potential train wreck.    I have spoken to the neighboring business, to the Church, the Shelter and the Daycare/Schools nearby and they all feel the same way but in true Southern fashion the response is: “Its always been that way.”  That resignation permeates all my dialogues here as if change is simply for one’s pocket and any other kind means to give up something.  Be that good or bad it means giving it up and they are not having any of that now y’hear!

My most recent exchange with said Mayor’s office that if I wanted to go around the train I was told to go via Oak Street. Yes I am aware of that (I live here and all of that)  but again I don’t have a car.   I bus it and the delays to the bus is another issue and yet this is a street pegged for lite rail.  We had this in Seattle and we have light rail and trains, and buses and ferries that transport people. We have bike lanes and trolley cars and we have sidewalks and crosswalks.. gosh why would anyone leave such a nirvana.  I am asked repeatedly: “Why did you come here?”  And my answer is that very question.

Bob the Stoned Engineer

As I work right now to have my neighborhood declared a Silent Zone under federal law due to the endless trains that run adjacent to my home, I have many concerns regarding safety as they transport a multitude of goods across country within a stones throw of my bedroom.

The endless parade of trains 24/7, the horns blasting, barricades flashing and the lengthy traffic contribute to noise pollution, air pollution and of course mental health decline due to lack of sleep.

I have tried repeatedly to garner the attention and in turn response by CSX the operators of said trains who simply say it is under federal law for my safety. Really it is? Then perhaps they could explain how my safety is protected by horns blasting when they clearly have other significant factors that do contribute towards my safety.

The legacy of trains in Nashville is well commemorated in song, the reality is that is in the past and we don’t need to hear trains to understand that. We also need a clear a coherent pattern/schedule of train travel and transport to ensure that the are traveling at times when safety is more of concern to follow speed guidelines and in turn allow inspections of said cargo to ensure it is neither dangerous and if so what precautions are done to ensure/prevent further damage if it leaks or the train becomes disabled. It perhaps explains why trains barrel through my hood at 2 am, horns blasting to move out and on before anyone catches on. That or Bob the Engineer is high as a kite and driving large heavy metal equipment with big noises can be fun when stoned.

Number of U.S. railroad workers testing positive for drug use skyrockets

By Ashley Halsey III
The Washington Post
September 15 2016

Early this year, a railroad worker who had just been briefed on his duties for the day was discovered in a restroom, dead from an overdose of illegal prescription drugs. In the months that followed, tests conducted after three railroad accidents resulted in six employees testing positive for drugs.

Testing in 2016 has shown that nearly 8 percent of workers involved in rail accidents were positive for drug use, including marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, benzodiazepine, OxyContin and morphine, according to internal federal documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The number of post-accident drug-positives was the highest since the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) began keeping records in 1987 and three times greater than it was 10 years ago.

Overall, the number of railway workers — including engineers, train crew and dispatchers — who tested positive for drug use in random tests soared 43 percent last year, the documents show. The number rose to 256 last year from 2014.

After rail accidents in 2014, no one tested positive for drugs, and just two people did last year. With more than three months left in this year, 16 rail workers have shown positive in post-accident tests.

Railroads transported 565 million passengers and 14.2 million carloads of freight last year. Their workers rank among the most heavily drug-tested employees in the country, faced with drug screening before they are hired, random on-the-job testing and another round of testing every time they make a significant mistake.

But after several years in which heroin and illegal opioid use has increased in the general population, there is hard evidence that the use of those and other drugs may be on the rise in the railroad industry.

Faced with the initial positive test results, federal regulators began sounding an alarm this spring. This month, the heads of all of the nation’s freight and passenger rail lines were summoned to Washington for a closed-door session to deal with a crisis that federal officials fear has put workers and train travelers at risk.

Officials from the FRA, National Transportation Safety Board and the Office of National Drug Control Policy spelled out their concerns and asked the railroads to help them address the growing problem.

This week they had a similar private session with railroad unions.

“We’ve discussed in depth the kind of data that we are seeing, the uptick in positive post-accident tests, the significant rise in positives in our random testing pool,” FRA Administrator Sarah E. Feinberg said in remarks prepared for the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee on Thursday. “We are seeing a trend going in the wrong direction, and we must address it immediately.”

The popularity of illegal prescription drugs and heroin has increased dramatically in recent years, with some analysts suggesting that efforts to crack down on illegal prescriptions have encouraged addicts to use heroin instead.

A record 28,647 people died from heroin and prescription opioid use in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and opioids caused more than 6 in 10 overdose fatalities. The CDC said deaths by powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl rose by more than 80 percent. Overall, 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in 2014, the CDC said.

Despite drug testing protocols, transportation workers are as susceptible to trends as the rest of society. The U.S. Department of Transportation drug-tests about 7 million people who hold commercial driver’s licenses, as well as railroad and transit workers, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

In the past five years, the DOT tests have shown sharp increases in use of amphetamines and natural opiates.

Among the railroad workers subject to random testing, however, the approximately 50,000 tests each year had shown no appreciable increase since 2009. Then they shot up by 43 percent last year. What’s more, the number of railroad workers found to be positive for drugs in the aftermath of rail accidents jumped dramatically this year.

“We know that the country is struggling with an opioid epidemic — and there is no reason why our industry would be immune from an epidemic affecting the entire country,” Feinberg said. “Workers who are struggling with addiction need, and deserve, our help. Workers who are intoxicated on the job are a danger to themselves, other workers, passengers, and anyone else who may cross paths with a train.”

Among the estimated 25,000 railroad workers who repair train engines and rail cars, FRA testing found that alcohol use was five times higher than among railway workers who performed other tasks.

Railroad drug testing is limited to about 120,000 workers who are considered “safety sensitive” — those whose performance puts lives at risk. The train-repair workers and about 70 percent of the 37,000 workers who maintain track beds and railroad right-of-ways are not required to undergo the same drug testing.

Alarmed by the overall increase in drug use, Feinberg in May finalized a new rule that would require “maintenance of way workers,” as the track workers are known, to undergo the same random drug testing as other workers.

The railroads, however, are resisting the proposed rule, which is scheduled to take effect April 1. They have petitioned to delay the testing for an additional 14 months, contending it will require “training supervisors on the signs and symptoms” of drug use.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR), which joined regional railroads, railroad construction and transit firms in petitioning for the extension, said the freight railroads it represents would meet the April 1 deadline for testing maintenance workers it employs.

“This is an issue that is evident throughout today’s society that requires attention, and the freight rail industry is ready to work with the FRA to further enhance the safety of the nation’s rail network,” AAR spokesman Ed Greenberg said.

“Freight railroads not only comply with federally mandated drug and alcohol testing regulations, but go beyond those measures with stringent railroad-specific programs,” Greenberg said. “That said, the freight rail industry recognizes the seriousness of this situation and will work together with the FRA to make the rail system even safer, including supporting the expansion of testing to include items such as synthetic opioids.”

Officials said Feinberg views any delay in implementing the rule as unacceptable.

The FRA and the railroads it regulates have been in the forefront of drug testing since 1987, when an Amtrak train collided with three Conrail freight locomotives linked together just north of Baltimore.

The engineer and 15 others on the Amtrak train were killed; 174 other people on the trains were injured.

Investigators determined that the engineer of the Conrail train and his brakeman had shared a marijuana joint as they made their way from the rail yard. The engineer, Ricky Lynn Gates, was convicted on state and federal charges and served four years in prison. In 1993, he told the Baltimore Sun that smoking marijuana was the cause of the crash and that it was not the first time he had done it on the job.

The FRA moved quickly in the aftermath of the crash to implement a drug-testing program for railroad workers. Less than four years later, Congress took the next step, requiring drug testing for “safety sensitive” workers in all industries regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation.