Nashville has become the new Atlanta regarding traffic congestion, so yes, it is bad even at 7am. Many large hospitals are in the midtown area so that impacts that early morning commute.
There are reportedly 100 people moving here per day/per week. Sadly we are the new "it" city to live in. That is why I escaped recently to the suburbs and while I love Nashville, I love Franklin better since I only work 3 days a week now.Ahhh.

The weekend prior to the eclipse is move in weekend for 3-5 local universities(Belmont,Lipscomb,Vanderbilt,Fisk,MTSU ) so more than likely many parents will stay over to view the eclipse so this is another reason hotel rooms are so heavily booked.

We have a metropolitan population area of nearly 2 million people-roads were never originally built to handle this and many commute quite a distance to work in the downtown metro area. There is no mass transit system and probably never will be.