Thursday, January 12, 2012

Taken For A Ride On Fort Worth's New Futuristic Super Bowl Buses

A Futuristic Fort Worth Bus
I read that bus, you are looking at in the picture, described in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, as being futuristic.

Futuristic.

I had no awareness of the existence of the futuristic Fort Worth buses until I was informed of their existence by Miss Gail Galtex.

I do not understand how I missed this.

Way back last year, in February, the futuristic Fort Worth buses made their debut during the February 6 Super Bowl, an event that is now known as the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Super Bowl Boondoggle Fiasco.

The new buses arrived in time for their drivers to be trained to operate them in time to transport Super Bowlers from the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) Centrepoint Station to the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

I can find no information as to how many people actually used the futuristic buses to get to the Super Bowl. There is a bus from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport that goes to the Centrepoint Station.

That must have really impressed people incoming from World Class Cities to get off the plane to hop a bus to get to another bus stop to hop another (futuristic) bus to take them to the futuristic Dallas Cowboy Stadium to watch the Super Bowl.

Fort Worth spent $6.4 million on their fleet of eight 80 passenger futuristic buses. This $6.4 million came from people all over America, courtesy of the Federal Recovery Act.

I assume this is part of what is known as The Stimulus.

This fleet of eight futuristic buses are now being used for the T's (Fort Worth Transportation) Rapid Transit Lines on East Lancaster Avenue. The Fort Worth Transportation Propagandists say the futuristic buses are a hybrid between a bus and light rail and will give passengers the feel of a light rail car.

Well.

I have ridden in a light rail car. And I have ridden in a futuristic articulated bus, those being futuristic articulated buses that I believe are quite a bit bigger than Fort Worth's futuristic articulated buses. I would not compare being on a futuristic articulated bus to being on something with the feel of a light rail car.

I guess you could say, if you were a practicing propagandist, that riding in a car has the feel of a light rail car. I mean, you are moving in a motorized vehicle that is connected to the ground by wheels.

So, I guess it makes sense for Fort Worth Transportation's propagandists to propagandize that these new futuristic Fort Worth buses give passengers that really special light rail experience that is denied the people of Fort Worth, but can be easily had by a trip to Dallas.

Changing the subject from propaganda back to the Super Bowl Boondoggle Fiasco.

Has there been any sort of investigation by anyone into how much money was wasted by Fort Worth in that particular Boondoggle? Some of the disaster was weather related, courtesy of ice storms and snow. But some of it was hubris related.

Like, how much money was wasted making ESPN happy? Fort Worth officials did such an embarrassing happy dance when ESPN indicated they wanted to broadcast from a parking lot in downtown Fort Worth. ESPN was not the Super Bowl broadcaster. They could not broadcast from a venue near the Super Bowl. Dallas likely turned down ESPN's request to broadcast from a place like the plaza in front of the American Airlines Arena.

And so Fort Worth got the prize of having ESPN on one of its parking lots. Fort Worth city officials were expecting HUMONGOUS crowds to come downtown to watch ESPN do its broadcast, indicating, at least to me, that Fort Worth city officials really think the locals are hard up for something to do.

Anyway, how much did the City of Fort Worth spend on its various Super Bowl related expenses, like clearing out the Shanty Towns and buying futuristic buses?

The small buses that have been serving Lancaster Avenue are never full. This is the only bus line I've actually ridden. It must feel like being in a ghost town to be riding those new, futuristic light rail-like buses, with a couple of poor, homeless people.

I am done now.

1 comment:

CatsPaw said...

That ridiculous-looking thing would probably do a decent job of housing some poor, homeless people.