Thinking About Connecting The Tandy Hills To Gateway Park With A Bridge & A Tunnel

Above is a map showing Gateway Park and the Tandy Hills Natural Area, known to Microsoft as Tandy Hills Park. I've long known that Gateway Park extended to the I-30 freeway, as shown on maps. Same with THNA.

What I had never thought about before is the fact that the part of Gateway Park that abuts I-30 is on the south side of the river. As in, outside the developed part of Gateway Park. As you can see, looking at the map, a large chunk of Gateway Park is on the other side of the river, not accessible from the developed part of the park.

So, today I went hiking on the Tandy Hills. I wanted to get a view of the undeveloped part of Gateway Park. That is the view in the above photo. You can see a change in the tree-line. That is where the Trinity River is.

Now, this south of the river part of Gateway Park appears to be very heavily wooded. I know the Trinity River Vision's vision has somehow expanded to Gateway Park and includes making a possible link, via tunnel under the freeway with the Tandy Hills.

At River Legacy Park, Arlington has built a very nice bridge for hikers, bikers and bladers, across the Trinity River. Now, I know Arlington is a much larger, much wealthier town than Fort Worth,  and can thus afford such extravagant public works projects.

But, I think it'd be a real good thing if Fort Worth built a bridge across the Trinity River to connect with the currently inaccessible parkland. And then build that tunnel connection to the Tandy Hills. Maybe the existing culvert could be used. Or, better yet, build a distinctive looking bridge over the freeway, connected to the Tandy Hills. The sort of bridge that makes passerby think they want to get off the freeway and walk across that bridge.

I know such a thing won't happen. Fort Worth sets its priorities on other things. Like building the world's premiere wake boarding venue, so that all the citizens of Fort Worth can enjoy the extreme sport of wake boarding.