What if your car could automatically call in those pesky Tennessee potholes? Well, maybe it can.
Hi, I’m Daniel Wagner from the Patriot Punk Network, giving you the latest Tennessee news in 3 minutes or less.
This is our Today in Tennessee Segment brought to you by Estate of Creative.
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Round 1
Waymo and Waze just launched a pilot where self‑driving cars will scan roads for potholes, feed that data into Waze for Cities, and hand transportation departments a live map of craters that need filling.
They’ve already logged around 500 potholes in five launch cities with plans to expand to include Nashville once Waymo starts navigating interstates. The goal is to make it so DOT crews can “efficiently and equitably fill potholes.”
Translation: the robots will do the complaining for you, and the city will know exactly which stretch of busted asphalt you’re cussing about.
I'm just over here trying to figure out how one fills a pothole equitably?
Do we need a Pothole Equity Audit committee who decides whether a pothole is underserved.
Will some of the larger potholes be eligible to be remodeled into Section 8 housing?
At this point, I half‑expect to see ‘Potholes Matter’ painted on the asphalt while the actual hole is still wide open.
For now, we'll still need to report potholes the old fashioned way. In Nashville, potholes can be reported on HubNashville or by dialing 311. For interstates, residents can fill out a form online or call 833-TDOT-FIX.
Round 2
Good news for people who like their rivers cleaner than their politics:
HB 1510, the “Duck River protection bill,” just finished splashing through the legislature and is headed to the governor.
Right now, only certain stretches of the Duck and Buffalo Rivers are protected as “Class II Pastoral River Areas” under Tennessee’s Scenic Rivers Act; this bill upgrades the map so the entire Buffalo River is covered and the entire Duck River is protected—except the TVA‑controlled stretch that’s part of Normandy Reservoir.
HB 1510 also adds several Duck River tributaries—Beaverdam Creek, Lick Creek, the Piney River segment in Dickson County, and Swan Creek—to the scenic‑river list so future industrial or wastewater projects face tougher scrutiny.
For once, Nashville passed a bill that doesn’t just sound pretty; it actually locks in protections for the water you fish, float, and drink.
That's 2 rnds dwn and just 1 to go, so drop a comment and tell us which Tennessee river you plan to visit next.
Round 3
In Tellico Plains, investigators just found out the former water and sewer manager was running a little “entrepreneurship program” on the clock.
According to the Comptroller’s report, he spent at least two years using town time to collect water samples for his private side business—hitting at least 18 locations for paying customers while his timecards said he was working for the city.
On one day alone, he pulled samples for the town at 9:12 a.m., then spent the next hour bouncing to three private businesses for his own clients, all while still on Tellico’s dime.
It gets better: he used his official title and the Town Hall address on his private invoices, so the lab bills for his side‑gig samples got mailed straight to city hall
—and the town actually paid them!
All this while a written policy said no outside employment without the mayor’s OK and no using municipal time or resources for private gain.
You know… standard common sense stuff.
Tellico Plains officials say they’ve tightened controls, which is governmentspeak for “we'll finally start reading the invoices before cutting the check."
That was your Tennessee news roundup.
For more deep dives into local stories, watch the Patriot Punkcast on Rumble every Sunday and Wednesday at 7pm CST. Thanks for watching our TITS — see you Monday!
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