General Assembly 2016: Getting Around Nashville
Preparations are ongoing for the 76th Church of God International General Assembly scheduled for July 19-22, 2016. In less than three months, thousands of delegates will converge on the city of Nashville, Tennessee, “Music City.”
With a new, city comes concerns about the logistics of navigating where the General Assembly has not been held previously. However, Nashville, and the Assembly venue, Music City Center (MCC), offers an abundance of accessibility and transportation options.
First of all, more than 1,000 hotel rooms are located within a three block radius of the MCC. Most delegates will be able to easily access the MCC from either the 5th Avenue or Demonbreun entrances.
For those driving in, over 1,000 covered parking spaces are located at MCC. Downtown more than 28,000 parking spaces make it easy to bring a car downtown. Broadway, downtown’s main thoroughfare, bisects numbered avenues into north and south. Most corporate offices and government agencies are north of Broadway. For more downtown parking information, please visit parkitdowntown.com.
The Metro Transit Authority (MTA) provides hourly bus service between downtown and the airport seven days a week. Downtown circulator buses, called the Music City Circuit provide free transportation Monday through Saturday. The Green Circuit carries passengers between downtown and the Gulch, while the Blue Circuit serves key destinations between the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. Music City Central, the downtown transit station, is located at 400 Charlotte Avenue. For more information, call 615-862-5950 or visit nashvillemta.org.
Ride share services, such as UBER and others are active in Nashville. Simply download the app and request a ride. A nearby driver will be dispatched to your location within minutes. The Nashville International Airport was the first airport in the country to allow ride-sharing services to operate on the property. For those wishing to take advantage of ride share services, the Church of God discount code for UBER is GA16UBER.
Kevin Brooks, Coordinator of Public Relations and Conference Management for the Church of God, also serves on the General Assembly cabinet and has been instrumental in negotiating with hotels and local transportation services. One of his favorites is a new and unique mode of transportation for downtown Nashville called Joy Ride, a complimentary downtown golf cart ride which operates by “tips only” for all riders.
“Joy Ride has embraced what downtown Nashville has become: a fun and active place with lots to do and see,” Brooks stated. “Whether on foot, car, bus or golf cart, getting around Nashville is easy and an adventure while getting there.”
