Rebooting How Nashville Moves
- Brooks McKinney, APR
- Jan 2
- 9 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Sabrina Sussman guides the development of new transportation infrastructure that will transform the City’s sidewalks, traffic signals, transit services and public safety.
At approximately 5:45 a.m. on May 12, 2014, Sabrina Sussman, a twenty-something VP of membership and development for the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), stepped out the door of her Capitol Hill apartment in Washington, D.C. to begin another training run for her first race.
To warm up, she ran about half a block down her quiet residential street. As she turned to cross the street, a car traveling at about 40 mph down her street (ignoring the speed bumps in the 25 mph zone) struck her, throwing her initially on top of the vehicle. Rolling
down the car’s windshield and across its hood, she landed in a heap on the asphalt street.
The woman driving the car put her vehicle in reverse and fled the scene, leaving Sussman battered and bloody. She sustained multiple injuries including a severe concussion, shattered bones in her face, a separated AC joint in her left shoulder, a fractured left knee, multiple torn ligaments in her right knee, a broken and separated tailbone and a torn ligament in her right ankle. Two major surgeries, 13 weeks of missed work and two and a half years of physical therapy learning how to walk changed forever her relationship with cities and pedestrian safety.
“Getting hit by a car turned an academic risk that most runners acknowledge into an intensely personal experience,” reflects Sussman. “It helped me realize that infrastructure is not just a neutral part of a cityscape; it is central, through smart and thoughtful design, to preventing collisions between vehicles and pedestrians in the first place.”
Reimagining Nashville’s Infrastructure
Today, as the chief program officer for Nashville, Tenn.'s “Choose How You Move (CHYM)” program, Sussman is guiding a comprehensive transformation of the city’s transportation infrastructure, keying in part off her personal experience.
Underpinned by a half-penny increase in Davidson County’s sales tax approved by voters in November 2024, the city’s 15-year transportation improvement plan (TIP) features significant upgrades to Nashville’s sidewalks, traffic signals, transit services and pedestrian and vehicle safety.
“Over the last 15 years, Nashville has experienced unbelievable growth,” notes Sussman. “Unfortunately, its (transportation) infrastructure has not evolved to meet changing demand.” (Forbes Magazine actually named Nashville the worst commute in the country in 2023.)
That’s why Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell began putting together a transit referendum in early 2024 to address the city’s disjointed, chronically underfunded transportation infrastructure.
“What made Mayor O’Connell’s referendum successful this time around—voters had previously rejected such a ballot measure—was an acknowledgement that the status quo was unacceptable, that people deserved a transportation system that better represented the place where they now lived,” says Sussman.
Leaning Into Policy
The daughter of a Xerox corporate manager, and a multidisciplinary artist and Hebrew school teacher, Sussman was born in Orange County, Calif. but spent her formative years in Rochester, NY. Her high school activities, which included Model United Nations and a mock government program in New York state, focused mainly on public service, politics and government leadership, all of which helped hone her skills in communications and organizational management.
When it came time for college in 2005, an insightful high school guidance counselor persuaded Sussman to consider American University in Washington, D.C., known for the large number of undergrads who earn professional internships while attending the school.
“American is really woven into the fabric of DC,” she explains. Her time at American University included internships with the U.S. House of Representatives and the Democratic National Committee. “I spent a lot of time learning the city and learning how politics overlaps with communications. As a communications major, I really got to see the impact that words have on our institutions.”
She graduated from American in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in communications and a minor in political science.
Uncovering the Value of Transportation
Following her desire to work in government—ideally in healthcare or education policy—Sussman began her professional career in 2009 at the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Between her daily exposure to Washington‘s transportation infrastructure and her work at USDOT, however, she began to appreciate the impact of good transportation policy on urban residents’ quality of life.
“Good healthcare and education policy don’t really matter if you can’t physically get where you need to go,” she observes. “Transportation really is the bedrock of all forms of socioeconomic mobility.”
Over the next two years, while working full-time to enable safe, efficient and equitable transportation networks, Sussman also completed a master’s degree in political management from nearby George Washington University.
Building Credibility
In April 2013, she moved to ITS America, but then in fall 2016, local government came calling.
As a senior policy advisor to the City of New York’s Office of Federal Affairs, the liaison between New York City’s government and the Federal government, Sussman advised the City on how best to secure federal investments in New York’s transportation, housing and economic infrastructure.
“That was an exciting time to be involved with local government,” she recalls. “I was still living in Washington and occasionally commuting; the job in New York helped me build a solid understanding of how the federal and local government interact.”
The experience also helped lay a foundation for how she and her Nashville team plan to build out funding for CHYM through federal grants and other revenue sources.
Adopting a New Philosophy
From her policy-leaning job in the Big Apple, Sussman headed to Zipcar—she claims she had “the best job in the company”— where she collaborated with cities, organizations and policymakers on how best to accelerate the growth of car-sharing as a key part of the urban transportation ecosystem.
While at Zipcar—its ethos was “you don’t need to own a car to sometimes use a car,”—Sussman also began to recognize and adopt a new, more profound transportation philosophy.
“Consumers deserve to have strong mobility options,” she declares. “Maybe you commute to work by taking a bus, but when you’re picking up your kids from school, you ride bikes with them. But if you have to go to Costco out in the ‘burbs, you want to drive. Every trip should offer consumers the right modality, the right choice.”
Finding the Road to Nashville
In her next professional role, Sussman served as a senior advisor with the Ballast Research/Penta Group, a “stakeholder solutions firm” that advises organizations on how policymakers and policy influencers view them. From there, she returned to USDOT as a political appointee, serving as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg and as a senior advisor to Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
As of Jan. 20, 2025, however, when Donald Trump became the nation’s 47th President, Sussman was officially looking for a new gig. Encouraged by Civic Match, a talent-matching program that connects experienced former federal employees with job openings in state and local governments, she learned of Nashville’s plans to invest heavily in the future of its transportation infrastructure … and decided she wanted to help shape that future.
Sussman joined the Nashville Mayor’s office in June 2025 as CHYM’s inaugural leader.
Modernizing Transportation Infrastructure
CHYM’s charter comprises significant enhancements to Nashville’s transportation infrastructure, including:
Constructing an additional 86 miles of sidewalks throughout the City,
Updating traffic signals at nearly 600 intersections,
Creating 54 miles of all-access corridors, and
Enhancing safety for all transportation users, furthering the City’s Vision Zero initiative.
CHYM improvements will be funded by the new 0.5-cent sales tax, which took effect Feb. 1, 2025, plus federal and state transportation grants and debt (bonds) receipts. The money is deposited into a dedicated CHYM account managed by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (“Metro”).
Sussman directs the allocation of money, approved by Nashville’s 40-member Metro Council (its chief legislative and budget-approval body), to the city’s key transportation agencies, including the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure (NDOT) and WeGo Public Transit (WeGo), the operator of Nashville’s buses and commuter rail system.
Sussman, who calls herself CHYM’s “chief wrangler,” describes the program as a focused, highly collaborative process. “Since NDOT owns the roads and WeGo manages operation of the transit systems that use those roads,” she observes, “both agencies are committed to using best practices to deploy the CHYM priorities outlined in the TIP presented last fall. No one goes off to their corner to build infrastructure by themselves.”
Calling on Innovation
Implementing CHYM, Sussman advises, presents both challenges and opportunities.
“Anytime you’re upgrading an old system in a built environment, there are physical limitations but also opportunities for innovation,” she notes.
For example, Nashville recently repurposed an old right-hand turn lane and the shoulder along one of its busiest streets to create a queue-jump bus lane, a special, short lane at an intersection that allows buses to bypass stopped traffic using an early green light to get ahead of car backup. This “bus-bypass” lane reduces traffic delays and improves transit reliability without taking a full lane away from cars.
The City has also called on new technology to improve its traffic signals.
“Just a few years ago, Nashville’s traffic signals were running on a dial-up modem, underpinned by copper wire,” Sussman explains. “It’s so out of date that we don’t even run copper wire to our homes anymore.”
Nashville is now laying fiber to connect and activate the full suite of benefits that smart signals offer, she adds. The new fiber will also allow technicians at the City’s new Transportation Management Center to respond in real time to issues on the ground and at control signals.
Gauging Progress
CHYM will also take some time to implement.
“Mayor O’Connell has challenged us to do it all in 15 years, which is very aggressive, but we’re coming strong out of the gate,” Sussman claims. “This past July, for example, WeGo increased the frequency of its operations, which means people who maybe were not riders six months ago are riding the bus today.”
Metro Council can vote to end the sales tax surcharge at any point after the 15-year implementation period of Choose How You Move, Sussman adds, but hopes that the Council will choose to focus the revenue at that time on maintaining the infrastructure built under CHYM.
“Perhaps there will be new types of infrastructure we’ll want to build once we have 15 years of perspective on this project,” she suggests.
Playing with Strength
Workdays begin early in the apartment that Sussman rents in the Capitol View neighborhood of Nashville.
“I wake up early and try to get in a session of weightlifting, strength training and maybe some cardio,” she says. “If that happens, it really sets my day off—and it means I’ve already accomplished one thing for the day.”
Thankfully, the commute to her office in downtown Nashville is relatively short. “I can walk, take the bus or drive,” she says. “I love being able to experience all the new transportation options we’re bringing to Nashville.”
Sussman’s typical workdays include Zoom meetings, speaking events and other types of public-facing engagements. She also spends time in the field getting to know members of local transportation agencies and observing CHYM projects underway.
“And then of course, I spend time trying to make sure that all parties are moving and ‘rowing’ in the same direction,” she clarifies.
Visualizing Success
Looking ahead, Sussman is excited about the impact that CHYM will have on Nashville and its citizens.
“The leadership and substantive engagement of Mayor O’Connell in creating Choose How You Move has been transformational for Nashville,” she declares. “The program offers a historic and generational investment in our city, and will transform the way Nashville moves.”
In other words, she promises, “it’s all going to be great.”
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If you enjoyed this article, please check out my profile of Michael Schneider, CEO of Streets for All. He’s making Los Angeles’ streets safer and more accessible for cyclists, pedestrians, transit riders and drivers alike. If you’d like to recommend other people for me to profile on this blog, please send your ideas to brooks@personsofinfrastructure.com. Many thanks.
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