Recently Nashville had a referendum on a new transit plan. I was, well, firmly ambivalent about it. There were a lot of potential benefits I could see but also some major downsides and problems just with the implementation and I was worried Nashville would end up like Cincinnati which started a subway then abandoned it. The referendum, and its failure, reminded me I need to resume my plan to ride every Nashville bus route and also inspired my choice of a route: lucky Number Seven. The Number Seven route goes to Green Hills which is one of the most congested areas of Nashville, mostly because there’s so much stuff there. There are actually two routes that go to Green Hills. The other is the Number Two, which runs roughly every forty-five minutes from 5:34am to 8:55am and then doesn’t restart until 2:15pm on weekdays only. The Number Seven runs roughly every twenty minutes on weekdays and every forty minutes on weekends.
Like all Nashville bus routes it starts from the downtown bus center.
It then winds through downtown and onto Broadway, which takes it by Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt Hospital. I hope I never get tired of making jokes about how you take the fork at the whisk.
Now this is where things start to go wrong: Hillsboro Village. It’s a small but charming little area near Vanderbilt full of stores and nice restaurants. The Belcourt Theater is there and the Fido Coffee Shop and The Pancake Pantry where people literally line up around the block waiting to get in. And cars are allowed to park on the street, reducing the number of lanes and making the whole thing a nightmare of stop and start traffic.
Several blocks after Hillsboro Village is the new challenge of crossing over I-440. Why is that a challenge? Because of all the cars trying to get off I-440 so they can go to Green Hills.
Parts of Green Hills are quite green and even a little hilly.
The bus then winds through the parking lot of Green Hills Mall, the last operating mall in the area and one of the main reasons for all the traffic.
Then it winds out and by Hillsboro High School where, many years ago, I took my first driver’s ed course, but that’s another story—and there was a lot less traffic then.
Then it’s a fifteen minute break at the last stop before the whole thing resumes.
My husband had an apartment tucked away right off of Hillsboro – walking distance to everything from the Harris Teeter (back when it was still a Harris Teeter), to Fido, Bosco’s, Sam’s, The Belcourt, Jackson’s, et al. It was a great location, and in his four years there, rent never went up.
I need to go see this whisk. I need to explore the Vanderbilt campus more thoroughly.
My favorite thing about Green Hills is Hillsboro High – home of the Burros. That’s right, the Hillsboro Burros. Also, Fox’s Donut Den.
Sounds like your husband lived in the perfect place to enjoy a lot of stuff. I’m a little envious.
I tried and failed to get a picture of the Burro Crossing sign in front of HHS when I was on the bus trip. That always cracks me up. And would you believe I’ve never been to Fox’s Donut Den? Well, I’ve been once. I got yelled at because they were out of milk, but that wasn’t my fault.
I’m over there all the time–I swim at that YMCA, go to the sushi place regularly, and pick up things at the Green Hills library. And yet I’ve never been back to the Donut Den. I may have to change that.
Things go wrong past the whisk. Got it.
Things always go wrong past the whisk.
There’s always something here to delight me.
It’s comments like this that inspire me to keep going.
Pingback: Going Number Two. - Freethinkers Anonymous