Bertha Bores While Fort Worth Bores In A Different Way

This sort of falls into the dormant category of something I read in a west coast online news source which I would not expect to be reading in the online version of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Or the print version of the Star-Telegram.

This time it is, once again, something I read in the Seattle Times.

Well, the obvious thing is that well into the foreseeable future it is unlikely any sort of transit tunnel is going to be bored under Fort Worth's tiny downtown.

While in Seattle a boring lady named Bertha is now well over the halfway mark in tunneling under downtown Seattle, part of a multi-billion dollar project to replace the Seattle waterfront's Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth there is a slow motion public works project known as America's Biggest Boondoggle, or the Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island District Vision.

Part of the fuzzy Fort Worth vision is three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Only one of those Fort Worth bridges has begun being constructed, with all three originally scheduled to take four years to build. Longer than many actual complex feats of engineering.

Now I'm getting to the difference between how a public works project is covered by local media in a modern American town and how it is covered in Fort Worth.

From the time Bertha began boring the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has kept Bertha's progress updated on its website. The Seattle Times continually reports on Bertha's progress, or lack of progress, as does other Pacific Northwest media.

When Bertha ran into an unexpected steel pipe, injuring her, causing about a year repair delay, the ongoing status was reportedly regularly in the Seattle Times and other Washington news sources. WSDOT had and has a live camera giving real time video access to the repair operation and Bertha's progress once she began boring again.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, I believe the one and only bridge under construction remains stalled, due to design errors. As far as I know, despite this stall being for over half a year now, the Star-Telegram has not reported on The Boondoggle's latest boondoggle, that being the little bridge not currently being built, which was supposed to take four years to build.

I believe a live cam was installed by The Boondoggle around the time the Roundabout, near the stalled bridge, was being built, along with The Boondoggle's homage to trash cans art installation.

I recollect more than one person joking that what one sees via The Boondoggle's live cam does not seem to change from day to day. As in not much happens.

I suspect with the stalled bridge project maybe the live cam has been turned off.

Then again, no one associated with The Boondoggle has ever given the slightest indication they have any realization of how embarrassingly inept has been the execution of this supposedly vitally needed flood control and economic development project.

So vitally needed that this project is being executed in ultra slow motion, going for some sort of Guinness Book of Records for Longest Construction Project in History. The Boondoggle's boondoggle has already surpassed the construction of the Panama Canal, the Taj Mahal and, well you get the drift.

Anyway, have I missed it somehow? Has anyone read anything in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the stalled bridge construction?

Other than the initial article which said construction should resume in about a month......