Saturday Walk Through Gateway Park Checking The Boondoggle's Progress

I think til today it had been over a month since I'd done any treasure hunting at Town Talk.

Gateway Park is between my abode and Town Talk. So, I decided to walk around Gateway Park on the way to Town Talk, figuring I would check in on the progress of America's Biggest Boondoggle's construction in the park.

With the construction in Gateway Park being yet one more "product" of The Boondoggle I did not expect to see much progress, unlike the road and bridge building project taking place on the north side of Gateway Park, the upgrade to 1st Avenue East, which is making rapid progress, with the bridge piers for the bridge across the Trinity taking shape, but with no propaganda touting such as a major accomplishment.

Like I said the upgrade to 1st Avenue East is not a product of The Boondoggle. It appears to be a well engineered, well designed project, quickly getting built.

I digress. Back to Gateway Park.

The photo you see at the top. That is a sign near the trailhead for the Gateway Park mountain bike trail. If I remember right I have made mention of this sign previously. Today, looking at that sign, something struck me as noteworthy. Under the heading of things "Coming in 2015 to Gateway Park East" among the items on the list is "ADDITIONAL RESTROOMS".

Additional restrooms? How do you have additional restrooms when you currently have no public restrooms? A 100 feet north of the above sign you see that which you see below.

Yes, what you see above is what passes for a "restroom" in Gateway Park, just as it does in most of Fort Worth's city parks.

Outhouses.

As you can see this installation of outhouses has been prettified with a concrete enclosure. The plus-sized outhouse at the end is plus-sized so as to accommodate wheel chairs. Isn't that thoughtful? But there is no place to wash ones hands after using these outhouses. Isn't that disgusting? How does a town get away with having public parks with no running water? Isn't that some sort of health code violation?

The above outhouse installation is not the only one located on this parking lot. There are a few other outhouses sitting at other locations on this parking lot, but without the prettifying concrete enclosures. All the Gateway Park parking lots have outhouse installations.

More on the Gateway Park outhouses later as we take a walk to the west side of Gateway Park to check out the current state of the new overlook being built to replace the old boarded up eyesore that had been making eyes sore for a decade, give or take a year.

Well, there has been some progress since I looked at this a month or so ago. The overlook is taking shape. Looks like there is a lot to get done though if this is going to be open for overlooking by the end of 2015.

From the overlook I decided to head east on the paved trail to see the current status of one of the new trail bridges I saw in the making the last time I was at this location.

Well, the paved trail does not yet connect to the new footbridge, a wood plank currently makes that connection.

The Gateway Park paved trails are rather messed up by this project. Could it not be done in a more cohesive, less sloppy manner? The mountain bike trail has been messed with in several locations. A lot of work had gone into the mountain bike trails. A lot of work will be required to restore the mountain bike trails to their pre-Boondoggle glory.

I think I have mentioned previously that I find it bizarre how much America's Biggest Boondoggle likes its signage. Sign propaganda is about the only thing The Boondoggle does well.

The massive sign installation by the Fort Woof Dog Park in Gateway Park is the most astonishing bit of propaganda signage I have seen produced by The Boondoggle. I've made note of this a number of times, if my memory is serving me correctly.

The Boondoggle's Fort Woof signs have had an update. See the big sign above, in front of all the other signs? Notice another sign stuck under the big sign? Let's get a close up look at what that update is telling us.

Oh my, America's Biggest Boondoggle paid someone to make a new sign announcing "CONSTRUCTION NOW UNDERWAY". With  two scenic river overlooks, paved trail upgrades, children's learning center, pedestrian bridges, bench, water fountains and...

A NEW TRAILHEAD WITH UPGRADED RESTROOMS.

Upgraded restrooms? Are these different than the "Additional Restrooms" we read about on the first sign we saw today? There will be upgraded restrooms at a new trailhead? Where is this new trailhead? How do you upgrade restrooms in a park which has no restrooms?

Is The Boondoggle upgrading the outhouses? Maybe painting the concrete enclosures? Or putting concrete enclosures around the outhouses which are currently not so adorned?

I was recently told that the genius behind America's Biggest Boondoggle's propaganda of the signage sort you see in Gateway Park and those embarrassing slick quarterly updates The Boondoggle mails to voters who have never been allowed to voted on this project, telling those voters all the progress that has been made since the last quarterly update. You know, like the Fall of 2014 quarterly update breathlessly told about the TNT explosion that mark the start of construction of three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect Fort Worth's mainland and an imaginary island.

Was it in the Spring quarterly update that we got told about the amazing feat of engineering achieved with the construction of the wooden forms for the little bridge's V-piers?

That paragraph that started with me saying I was recently told who the genius was behind The Boondoggle's propaganda turned into a run-on sentence that got away from me.  Anyway, I was told it was the notorious propaganda artist, Bryan Eppstein who is behind The Boondoggle's public relations. Apparently Eppstein was hired to help repair The Boondoggle's bad public image. I recollect mentioning something in relation to that, which had me offering advice for free regarding The Boondoggle's bad public image, with that advice being you can repair your bad public image by "Getting something done you clueless boobs" or something like that.

Did those running The Boondoggle really think that no one would notice that they have been Boondoggling along for well over a decade, with little to show for the effort?

Did The Boondoggle really think that no one would point out the fact that taking four years to build three simple bridges is just embarrassing? Taking longer to build than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge, built over deep, fast moving water.

Did The Boondoggle really think no one would point out that their propaganda about building the bridges over dry land as a planned construction method, cheaper and easier than building over water, was an obvious lie? When the obvious fact of the matter is there will be no water under those bridges until the Trinity River is diverted in the ditch not currently being dug because The Boondoggle is not a fully funded project.

I was told Bryan Eppstein's propaganda firm has been paid a substantial amount of money to spew out The Boondoggle's propaganda, well over a million bucks. How does that work? The Boondoggle is not a private business. The Trinity River Vision in all its various names is some sort of quasi-public agency. The funds The Boondoggle spends are not private funds, the money spent is taxpayer money. So, The Boondoggle takes your money to build a project you have not voted to build, then takes more of your money to produce propaganda to convince you that they are doing a good job with that money you have given them.

I tell you, the Fort Worth Way of getting things done is very unusual....