Another Fort Worth Park Puts Up Closed Signs

The CLOSED signs you see are in Gateway Park. There is a third CLOSED sign, that you do not see, to the left. The CLOSED signs are blocking you from entering the elaborate boardwalk walkway that takes you down to the Trinity River in a series of switchbacks.

There are 2 of these boardwalk, river access contraptions in Gateway Park. I assume the other one is CLOSED too.

I have previously made note of the fact that these boardwalks seemed to suffer from neglect, with no cleanup after a flood leaves a deposit of mud, resulting in the eventual decomposing of some of the woodwork.

Why was money spent to build these things, if there was no intent to maintain them? How much did they cost? Who built them? Who put up the CLOSED signs?

Today marks the second time I have been surprised to happen upon a CLOSED sign at a park in Fort Worth. The most bizarre CLOSED park discovery was when I found that one of Fort Worth's few truly unique locations, Heritage Park, it being a small park that celebrated where Fort Worth began, with a very well done system of catwalks, overlooks, water features and views, was also allowed to deteriorate to the point that cyclone fence now surrounds it.

The Heritage Park debacle is particularly bizarre to me, in the city that is the envy of other cities far and wide. Heritage Park is directly across from the Tarrant County Courthouse. The cyclone fence is in plain view of any passing motorist, and the few tourists, who drive north on Main. Any other town, with any sort of pretension to anything but mediocrity, would long ago have fixed this embarrassing eyesore.

Instead the Heritage Park eyesore festers. There are citizen groups trying to fix the park. I do not know how much headway they have made.

In the meantime, Gateway Park now has Fort Worth's latest embarrassing eyesore, that should never have happened.

Gateway Park has been sucked into that vortex of civic madness gone awry, known as the Trinity River Vision, a vision that of late seems destined to go blind.

The CLOSED signs at Gateway Park today may be some sort of omen of the impending demise of the Trinity River Vision. I mean, why don't we try to keep what has already been built here, up and running? And then move on to more grandiose projects. With voter approval, of course.