J.D. Granger and one of his minions in the control room monitoring the ongoing progress of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
Also affectionately known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.
No, that is not America's Biggest Boondoggle's control room you see here in the Trinity River Vision Authority's headquarters on the ground floor of the Boondoggle's partner in propaganda, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
America's Biggest Boondoggle has no control room where the lack of progress of that ongoing slow motion project is monitored.
Is the Boondoggle's live cam still aimed at that one and only of the Boondoggle's three simple little bridges to have sort of reached construction mode, but halted over a year ago, due to mysterious undisclosed problems?
The control room you are looking at above is not in Fort Worth. It is underground in Seattle. That control room is part of the world's biggest tunnel boring machine, nicknamed Bertha, who is nearing the completion of her boring task.
Unlike Fort Worth, Bertha and other Seattle public works projects are totally transparent operations. When Bertha ran into a snag a couple years ago there was no cover up, no dissembling, no hiding.
The problem and the fix were all out in the open, literally.
Such a contrast with how a backwards backwater corrupt town like Fort Worth operates.
Or does not operate.
There are multiple online locations where one can monitor the progress of Bertha and the ongoing Seattle waterfront re-build.
Fort Worth's congresswoman, Kay Granger, has dementedly propagandized that Fort Worth's pitiful Trinity River Vision is the largest urban water project in North America.
I mentioned this ridiculous Kay Granger assertion in a blog post on the day the Boondoggle had its explosive start of bridge construction ceremony way back on November 11, 2014. titled A Big Boom Begins Boondoggle Bridge Construction Three Months Late. A couple paragraphs from that blogging, one of which mentions Bertha...
Apparently Kay Granger is not at all surprised at the length of time it is taking to secure those federal dollars, because she knew it was going to take a long time because “It’s the largest urban water project in North America. It’s huge.”
The only other urban water project currently underway in North America, which I am aware of, is Seattle's re-do of its waterfront seawall, along with replacing a section of waterfront elevated highway with a big tunnel, to the tune of several billion dollars. Already fully funded, with no unseemly begging,
A couple years ago Bertha hit that snag, well, actually an unexpected big chunk of steel, which halted her for about a year. But, unlike the TRCCUPIV's stalled bridges, Bertha got herself fixed and back to tunneling, and is now nearing the tunnel completion point, in a much shorter time frame than the four years which was originally claimed it was going to take for the Boondoggle to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
There is no project timeline for Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision. There have been multiple instances of shifting estimates of the completion dates of aspects of the Boondoggle, such as within the past year J.D. Granger has been quoted saying "the project's infrastructure should be completed by 2023".
One can assume that part of that infrastructure is the three simple little bridges being built over dry land whose construction has been halted for a year.
Contrast America's Biggest Boondoggle's lack of any sort of project timeline, or project accountability, or transparency with Seattle's Bertha project. Go to WSDOT's Follow Bertha webpage where you will find all sorts of information, including the interactive project timeline graphic you see screen capped below.
UPDATED MON AND THURS
As of March 16, 2017: 556 feet remaining
Total rings built: 1,332 of 1,426
Distance traveled: 8,714 of 9,270 feet
March progress to date: 404 feet
February progress: 930 feet
It would be easy for the Trinity River Vision Boondogglers to update their bridge construction progress...
As of March 20, 2017: ZERO PROGRESS
Below is a WSDOT video tour showing multiple aspects of Bertha and the tunnel she is boring. This video is unique in that it provides a 360 degree look as you watch the video and maneuver the view via the controls at the upper left.
Now, after all this time, wouldn't you think the Trinity River Vision Boondogglers could come up with some sort of video documentation showing all the progress made in this vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme which has been dawdling along for most of this century?
You can take a Stormy Look At Zero Panther Island Bridge Motion Progress before you take the video tour of Bertha below...
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