What you are looking at above is a view of one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's ill-fated bridges in its formative stage, awaiting a concrete coating in anticipation of being support piers for an actual bridge being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
Recently the Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorially opined that We need straight talk on Panther Island, apparently instead of the ridiculous propaganda the Star-Telegram has been spewing for years about what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.
So, let's have some more of that Star-Telegram requested straight talk, this time specifically about these pitiful bridges, which local wags have taken to calling Yeehaw Seesaws, construction of which began years ago with a four year bridge building project timeline, a timeline long ago abandoned.
One of the more annoying bits of propaganda about these bridges has been the claim they are being built over dry land in order to save money.
As if such was part of some engineering plan to benefit the taxpayers.
But, the reality has always been that there will be no water under those bridges until a ditch is dug under them and water from the Trinity River is diverted into that ditch.
In others words, there was never any possible option other than to build the three simple little bridges over dry land.
Why the Star-Telegram has gone along with this propaganda lie about the bridges being built over dry land to save money is so bizarre and inexcusable, and yet one more reason why I have long said this is not a real newspaper and that Fort Worth suffers from not having a real newspaper.
What with the Star-Telegram's new found interest in straight talk about America's Biggest Boondoggle, maybe an actual reporter could be sent to the ground floor of the Star-Telegram building, that being a floor which serves as ground zero for The Boondoggle, where that intrepid reporter could navigate him or herself past the ridiculous installations of propaganda to find someone who might finally answer the question which has never been answered, with that question being what was the bridge design problem which caused construction of these simple bridges to be halted for well over a year?
That is one of the bridge piers you see above, after it received its long awaited concrete coating.
In a long ago article in the Star-Telegram, reporting construction on the ill-fated bridges was about to be re-started, due to the resolution of conflicts about design viability, there was zero information regarding the nature of the design problem.
The Boondoggle's Executive Director, J.D. Granger, was quoted saying something along the line that his team had constructed a scale model of the controversial bridge pier which demonstrated the design was viable.
So, Star-Telegram, what with your new found interest in straight talk could you please let your readers, and voters, know what was the nature of the bridge design problem? And it would also be interesting to know how many Boondoggle dollars J.D. Granger spent building that scale model which supposedly proved the design's viability.
Speaking of the design viability. More than one person has asked me if I knew anything about the foundation upon which those V-piers are teeter tottering. One person who had looked up close at one of the V-piers told me he could detect no foundation other than a big round concrete pod-like structure upon which the V-pier form teetered.
It would seem obvious all those wooden V-piers, awaiting their concrete coating, are sitting atop solid foundations deep in the ground, which is the norm for bridges, and any heavy structure.
Is that going to be the next chapter in this ongoing Fort Worth scandal? Bridges piers built with no solid foundation?
And another thing the Star-Telegram could find out about, for its voting readers being asked to help pay for what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, is how will the diversion channel be engineered?
That channel, more commonly referred to as a cement lined ditch, will be dug after, or if, those bridges are actually built.
How do you dig a massive ditch under possibly poorly foundationed bridges without having some serious engineering complications?
Is that not the type question the Star-Telegram should be asking what with that newspaper's newfound straight talk ethic?
Also in the Star-Telegram Straight Talk Series...
Panther Island Straight Talk Per Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Request
Looking For Fort Worth Star-Telegram Straight Talk About The Boondoggle's Homage To A Trash
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