Getting to Lower Broadway and parking near it is one of the few genuinely annoying parts of a Nashville night out. Here is the honest, practical version: where to park, what it actually costs, and when you are better off not driving at all.
Should you even drive?
For a weekend night on Broadway, the answer is often no. Parking near the strip is surge-priced and expensive after dark, traffic crawls, and on Friday and Saturday nights Broadway itself is closed to cars. If you are coming for a weekend evening, a rideshare or a short walk from a hotel will save you money and frustration. Driving makes more sense for a daytime visit, a weekday, or a single event where you park once and leave once.
Where to park near Broadway
Lower Broadway runs just five short blocks, from 1st to 5th Avenue, so almost any downtown garage puts you within a reasonable walk. These are real, named facilities, with addresses from the Nashville Downtown Partnership directory.
Closest to the strip:
- Fifth + Broadway Garage, 598 Broadway. The large garage under the Fifth + Broadway development, closest to the heart of the strip.
- Bridgestone Arena Garage, 501 Broadway. Directly on Broadway at 5th. Rates spike hard on Predators games and arena concerts.
- 5th & Broadway Garage, 501 Commerce Street. One block off Broadway by the arena.
A short walk away, in SoBro or just north:
- 150 Garage, 150 2nd Avenue South. Very close to the river end of Broadway.
- Symphony Place Garage, 150 3rd Avenue South.
- Bridgestone Tower Garage, 200 4th Avenue South.
- One Nashville Garage, 158 4th Avenue North. Just north of Broadway, open 24 hours.
- 4th & Commerce Garage, 147 4th Avenue North.
- Music City Center Garage, 701 Demonbreun Street. A five to seven minute walk from the strip.
The cheaper city-run option: the Public Square Garage at 101 James Robertson Parkway is Metro-operated and usually well below the private Broadway-adjacent rates. It is about a ten to twelve minute walk north to the strip, which is the trade-off. Note that the downtown Library garage on 6th Avenue, often recommended in older guides, was temporarily closed for repairs at the time of writing.
Small surface lots sit right on Broadway itself. They are convenient, but they are privately run, small, and the most aggressively priced of all on a weekend night.
What parking actually costs
Parking near Broadway is dynamically priced, so there is no single number. What is reliable is the shape of it. A daytime or short weekday visit is cheap, often somewhere around five to fifteen dollars. A normal weekend night at a private Broadway-adjacent garage typically runs from the mid-teens up to about thirty dollars. An event night, with a Predators game or a concert at Bridgestone Arena, can push thirty to fifty dollars or more, especially at the lots right next to the venue.
On-street metered parking in the downtown core runs about two dollars an hour for the first couple of hours and climbs from there, with posted time limits. The two city-run garages are the consistently cheapest option if you are willing to walk a little further.
The single best money-saving move is to pre-book. Apps like SpotHero and ParkMobile show live rates and let you lock in a price ahead of time, which almost always beats the drive-up rate at the gate. Treat any price you see here as a range, not a quote, and check current rates before you go.
Park once and walk
Downtown Nashville’s core is compact and flat, and the smartest parking strategy is usually to park a few blocks out and walk in. A garage right on Broadway is a one to five minute walk to the middle of the strip. The SoBro garages are roughly five to ten minutes. Even the city-run Public Square Garage is only ten to twelve minutes. Parking three to six blocks out is often meaningfully cheaper and skips the worst of the traffic crawl right at Broadway. The only real friction is the crowd: Lower Broadway sees more than sixteen thousand pedestrians on an average day, and the sidewalks get genuinely packed on weekend nights.
Getting an Uber or Lyft to and from Broadway
This changed recently and is worth understanding before you go. In May 2026 the city launched twenty-four designated rideshare pickup and drop-off zones in the downtown and Broadway area. Each zone is about the size of three parking spaces, marked with signage, and the Uber and Lyft apps automatically route you to the nearest one.
In practice, on Thursday through Sunday evenings between 5pm and 4am, your driver will not stop directly outside a specific honky-tonk. The app sends you to a designated zone nearby, and you may have a block or so to walk. Drivers are expected to spend no more than three minutes in a zone, so be ready when your ride arrives. The zones run until 4am, which lines up with last call, so app-based pickup is realistic even at closing time. Expect longer waits and surge pricing right at close.
The program is new and the city has said it will adjust it over time, so follow the pickup point in your app rather than a fixed corner.
Weekend street closures
On Friday and Saturday nights, Broadway is closed to vehicles between Rep. John Lewis Way (5th Avenue) and 2nd Avenue, from 7:30pm to 1am, for pedestrian safety. During those hours, no car, rideshare included, can enter the honky-tonk strip itself. That is exactly why the designated rideshare zones on the cross streets matter. Closure plans have changed before, so it is worth a quick check of current conditions, but the safe assumption on a weekend night is that you are arriving on foot for the last stretch.
The WeGo Star train
The WeGo Star is a commuter train that runs into downtown and stops at Riverfront Station, 108 1st Avenue South, right at the foot of Broadway. It is a great arrival point, with one catch: it is a commuter service that runs weekday mornings and afternoons only. There is no regular evening or weekend service, so the WeGo Star can work for a weekday daytime trip from the eastern suburbs, but it is not a ride home from a night out. Special-event service is sometimes added for things like CMA Fest, so check current schedules if your visit lines up with a big event.
Party buses, pedal taverns, and group transportation
If you are visiting with a group, the easiest way to skip the parking problem entirely is to not park at all. Party buses, limos, and the pedal taverns and open-air vehicles that roll up and down Broadway are a major part of the scene, especially for bachelorette parties and larger groups. They are booked in advance, they handle pickup and drop-off, and they take the driving, parking, and rideshare logistics out of the night completely. For a group of more than a handful of people, the cost often works out better than several separate rideshares plus parking.
The bottom line
For a daytime or weekday visit, drive and park a few blocks out. For a weekend night, lean on rideshare and the designated zones, or book group transportation if you are with a crowd. Either way, plan the getting-there before you plan the bars. When you are ready for the bars, the full lineup is on the schedule and every venue is in the directory.