Nashville Public Radio
Tony Gonzalez

Nashville’s newest study of mass transit has uncovered two distinct camps of people, meaning that it won’t be easy for transportation leaders to please everyone.

A city survey of more than 3,000 people, about what they want in mass transit, revealed strong interest in convenient, dependable, frequent, and safe service.

But different types of transit riders don’t rank these qualities the same way.

On one side, people who already use transit are focused on creating a system in which buses arrive on time.

But the much larger group — those who rarely use transit now — they rank convenience at the top, which would mean creating more transit stops close to where they live.

Officials know that it’s logistically tough to create more stops while keeping up the speed of a system. Finding the balance is the challenge of the ongoing study known as “nMotion 2015.”

Following the publication of the study on Friday, officials plan to deliver ideas about solutions soon.

Additional survey results

• 45% of respondents said they never use public transportation, and together with those who use the system less than once per week, they ranked convenience as most important, followed by safety.

• Those who do ride transit cite dependability most often.

• “Frequent” service was described by Nashvillians as stops every 15 minutes.