Driving to Chattanooga on 24.
I'd like to avoid Nashville if at all possible. If I can't  how bad is 24 at Nashville?
 Thanks !

It all depends. What time of the day? What day? Rush hour? Wrecks? Construction?

Best bet is to use whatever traffic apps you have or Waze.

Circumventing Nashville will take much longer than just grinning and bearing your way through town, as there is no real way to bypass it without using surface streets and having to deal with constant traffic lights and stop signs when coming west to east on I-24.

Like mentioned, just use Waze and pay attention. It definitely helps if you can come through town between, say, 7pm and 6am. Don't think for a minute that it matters if you come through on the weekend, either. Between the tourists heading to Broadway and folks heading to Titans home games on Sundays, I-24 stays busy.

In morning rush hour, the 24,65 intersection does suck.  

At hwy 249 get of onto hwy41 and take 41 to Briley, then take Briley all the way around to 24 on the south side.

Probably not going to save a lot of time but will typically keep you out of bumper to bumper traffic if that is what you are trying to avoid.

Watch for potholes, rough sections of pavement, and road debris (which can be kicked up into the air by trucks running over it).

Expect idiots to be driving near you.

During the summer months, don't be shocked to see a burning vehicle on the shoulder.

Car parts (bumper covers, wheels, etc) or broken funiture laying on the shoulder are pretty much a given at any time of the year.

Thanks all!

Briley Parkway. Always go Briley.

Use Waze or Google to navigate. Unless it’s early in the morning or later in the evening, I avoid DT.

Unless you're going 0001-0700, the last 50-75 miles to Chattanooga is probably going to suck worse. Nashville isn't too bad aside from rush hour times.

Once you get southeast of Murfreesboro, I-24 closes down to 2 lanes each direction and it has a lot of semi traffic. Construction heading into Chattanooga too according to my coworkers that commute from there.

Yeah, the climb into Monteagle tends to suck ass due to the semi's going 10-15 under the limit and the other drivers passing them 5-10 under. Once you get out of Monteagle and head downhill, it opens up to three lanes for a bit, but then it often slows down again as you hit the TN/GA line and the 24/59 intersection. The 24/75 intersection is also horrible, in large part because of the construction on that part of 24.

This.  Unless google is giving me real time and it's green or maybe yellow .it's always Briley.

Show me on the dollie where Nashville touched you.

LOLOL.   Yeah I drive through there weekly and that's a bit much.    Well, except the idiot part but that's all over

- Two busted windshields from debris that was launched into the air when semis ran over them
- A slashed 31x10.5x15 BF Goodrich K02 (less than a month old) due to a busted pallet in the road (ability to dodge was limited by merging traffic)
- A chunk of trim knocked off a rocker panel by a shovel that was bouncing along the road
- A totaled VW convertible due to a guy in an SUV making a hard left turn and crossing the median while apparently not understanding why no matter how hard he stood on the pedal with his right foot, the SUV didn't slow down (I finished physical therapy a couple months short of two years later)

One of the windshields (the one that WASN'T busted so badly that it bowed inward until it touched the top of the dash) happened on 440.  The rest happened on the section of I-24 between the 440 junction in Nashville, and Murfreesboro.  The OP mentioned I-24, so...

I also very narrowly missed being part of a massive pileup on I-24 by Sam Ridley Pkwy, after somebody that was getting onto I-24 decided they had the right of way, regardless of how many cars already occupied the lane they were taking.  When the crunching noises stopped, I noticed a rollback sitting a little ahead of me and thought "Lucky him, he's empty and is in the perfect spot to pick which car he's going to get paid to haul off".  Then it occurred to me that he was sitting at a right angle to the lanes and noticed that his front end was crunched - "OK, maybe not so lucky for him."



Round trip five times a week for the last 13 years, for me.

ETA:  I forgot about the incident that happened right after I got onto 440 from I-24 and traffic suddenly came to a stop.  I was barely going to have time to stop without hitting the car in front of me, and I had serious doubts about the pickup behind me stopping in time, so I swerved toward the shoulder.  I think the only braking that was applied to the pickup was the bumper-car effect of hitting one corner of my rear bumper - he shoved me up the embankment with the hit.  After he got stopped, he got out and asked if I was OK, then told me he was unemployed and had no insurance.  I crawled under my bumper and started looking for damage.  Couldn't find anything other than scuff marks and a small dent in the bumper from the impact, so I told him I didn't see any need for a police report.  His face lit up, he extended both arms toward me, then asked if he could give me a hug.  I replied "NO" as I extended one hand with my palm toward him.  I briefly entertained the thought of pointing out that such actions were not in his best self-interest to try with an older guy carrying two belt knives, a 9mm, and two spare mags (particularly when the old guy was not in the best of moods), but decided I didn't want to risk dealing with him having a meltdown in front of me.

Thanks again all!

That would be the taxes, but the OP seemed more interested in driving conditions.

Jeeeeeez.   Never had those issues.

Maybe a decade ago, a coworker asked me "Why do you have to be so negative (pessimistic in my expectations) about everything?".  My immediate reply was "How long have you known me?".  Other than a period of about a year, we had been working at the same companies since we met around February of 2000, when I was a couple months into a long divorce and custody battle in Muriel Robinson's courtroom.  In addition to the joys of spending so much time with Muriel Robinson, that coworker had known me while

- I had two cars totaled by being hit by uninsured drivers at intersections in east Nashville (one rear-ended while I was stopped, the other hit from the left while I had the green light),
- another car sideswiped in downtown Nashville by a cute blonde who was so wrapped up in her road rage at the car in front of her that she didn't notice I was beside her when she tried to change lanes,

and by the time he asked why I had to be so negative, I had already been informed that my father had signed papers putting a rather large lean on his estate.  That meant that the land under the house that I had built, and that he had been making excuses for several years to not follow through on his verbal agreement to sell me the land, was going to be sold at auction after he died and I was unlikely to get much of anything from the sale of the house that I had built and had been living in.

After staring at me for a few seconds after I asked him how long he had known me, he said "nevermind" and walked off.

If somebody starts calling me Eeyore, there's not much I can say about it.