Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Closes In On 1 $Billion While Parts Of The Vision Go Blind

Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision, which started out as simply being an impoundment of the Trinity River, to create a little "Town Lake," then the vision got bigger when an unneeded flood diversion channel was added, so as to get Federal money, then canals were added, then 3 signature bridges, then restoring a wetlands and enhancing Gateway Park.

In one of the worst cases of nepotism I've ever been witness to, Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger's son, J.D Granger, he with absolutely no experience overseeing such a development, was put in charge of it.

There really was no significant protestation of this case of nepotism from the citizens of Fort Worth. They are so totally used to the Fort Worth way of doing things. The majority of Fort Worth's citizens also don't see any problem with the fact they've not been allowed to vote on this hazy vision that would so greatly alter their city. Because, really, in actuality, it is not their city. They just live there.

The price tag, originally for the lake, canals, bridges and flood diversion channel was less than half a $billion. Yesterday, it was announced that the decision had been made to drop the 3 signatures bridges designed by Vancouver architect, Bing Thom. Mr. Thom was also the architect who designed Fort Worth's most recent boondoggle, that being the aborted Tarrant County College campus, being built into the bluff above the Trinity River.

Mr. Thom's college campus had the potential to give Fort Worth its first iconic structure, recognizable to other people in the world as being Fort Worth. Mr. Thom's signature bridges also had the potential to give Fort Worth its first iconic structural images. I guess Fort Worth is destined to have only one iconic image identified with it, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards sign, which really only clues people to it being Fort Worth, due to the name being part of the iconic image.

A town without an identifiable iconic structural image really has not managed, as yet, to put itself on the world map. Seattle managed it with a thing called the Space Needle. Dallas did it with a thing called Reunion Tower. San Antonio has an Alamo. New York City has a big statue, among other things. Chicago has a tower or two that people recognize as Chicago.

It takes someone with a vision to give a city an iconic image. Unfortunately Fort Worth has had the benefit of the vision of someone named Ed Bass, he being the member of the good ol' boy network most responsible for stopping the construction of the new Tarrant County Community College, and also responsible for some of downtown Fort Worth's worst architectural missteps, due to his obvious unrefined taste in such matters.

In addition to dropping the signature bridges, the canals are also being dropped, leaving the Trinity River Vision only seeing the original Town Lake, the unneeded flood diversion channel, that was added later, and the Gateway Park development, which was also added later.

Now, at what point in time do we call this project what it is, as in a massive, ridiculous, poorly managed, embarrassing boondoggle?

Also the completion date of this boondoggle, which is very unlikely to ever see fruition, any more than Tarrant County Community College's boondoggle was ever likely to be completed, has now been pushed off til 2021. So, we've got a lot of years to go before the unneeded flood diversion channel starts doing its protection job.

Meanwhile, how much money is being spent fixing the chronic flooding problems in Haltom City? No one has died or lost their home in flooding in the area of Fort Worth's cloudy River Vision. The same can not be said for Haltom City.

I tell you, the priorities of some of the people who live in this zone really perplex me. Perplex me an awful lot.