A Stormy Floating Bridge Has Me Freshly Perplexed By Official Fort Worth Nincompoopery

Someone reading this who is in the Dallas/Fort Worth zone may be thinking what they are seeing here is an artist's rendering of what it may look like if America's Biggest Boondoggle ever finishes its bridges connecting the mainland to an imaginary island, with the flood diversion ditch under the bridges filled by a flooding Trinity River.

Well, that body of water is not the Trinity River, it is Lake Washington, which would make that bridge the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, during the Big Blow that blew in a couple weeks ago, on Saturday, August 29.

I suppose I should now turn this into one of our popular bloggings about bridges constructed in less than four years.

Over water.

For those new to the program, the reason we look at bridge building projects, built over water, built in four years, or less, is due to the amazingly embarrassing fact that America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision, last October, celebrated with a big bang, the beginning of construction of three simple, little bridges, being built over dry land, with a four year project timeline. After which, if funding can be found, a flood diversion ditch will be dug under the bridges.

The propaganda spewing con artists who have foisted this project on the locals have gotten away with claiming the bridges are being built over dry land so as to save money by making construction easier, when the obvious fact of the matter is there will be no water under the bridges until the Trinity River is diverted into the newly dug ditch.

The ditch is not currently being dug because there is no money to pay for it. America's Biggest Boondoggle is not funded in the way most public works projects of this sort are funded, with the funding in place before the project starts, with the project having a project timeline.

America's Biggest Boondoggle has no projected finish date for this supposedly vitally needed flood control and economic development project.

Meanwhile, up north, well northwest, the bridge building project which will replace the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge is well underway. The first of the new bridge's pontoons moved into position on August 11, 2012. The new bridge is scheduled to open in April of 2016. This bridge project is a bit more expensive than America's Biggest Boondoggle's project, with it forecast to cost, when all is done, $4.65 billion. That includes the new bridge, plus improvements to I-5,  I-405 and SR-520.

The bridge the new one is replacing was real cheap. It cost only $21 million in 1961 dollars, around $150 million in 2015 dollars. The original Evergreen Point Floating Bridge opened to traffic on August 28, 1963, taking three years to build. Over water.

I really don't understand why the Fort Worth locals don't revolt against the embarrassing Nincompoopery of their elected officials, like Mayor Betsy Price. Or the Nincompoopery of un-elected officials, like J.D. Granger.

What does it take for the locals to say enough is enough? Is the reason why the locals don't revolt the reason Elsie Hotpepper has suggested to me? As in, way too many locals are un-questioning sheep, willing to follow the leader into floating in an e.coli polluted river?

How have those behind America's Biggest Boondoggle gotten away with the obvious lie that the reason those three little bridges are being built over dry land is to save money?

It is all very perplexing, and I for one do not agree with those who think the explanation is that way too many Texans are poorly educated, and thus a bit ignorant. I think the reason lies elsewhere, but my quest to find the answer really is quite exhausting, and I am not making much headway....