If memory serves accurately I have mentioned a time or two the fact of Fort Worth's sidewalk shortage, and what effect that noticeable shortage might have when Fort Worth tries to woo a corporation to town.
Long ago Fort Worth Weekly made note of the Fort Worth sidewalk shortage. I had no memory of reading this, but the author of the Fort Worth Weekly article about the town's sidewalk shortage emailed me, years ago, after I had made mention of the sidewalk shortage. The author had long returned to the heavily sidewalked north, I think somewhere in Illinois, or maybe it was Indiana, when he read my blogging lament about the Fort Worth sidewalk problem.
Anyway, that Fort Worth Weekly writer who had also noticed all the streets without sidewalks, with pedestrians making do with muddy trails along roads, or just walking in the street, lamented that apparently nothing had yet been done about the obvious problem, in all the years since he had escaped.
And now, a couple decades later, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram finally makes note of this long obvious problem. A few paragraphs illustrating how the Star-Telegram describes the town's sidewalk shortage...
Ella Burton hopes when the new Como Community Center opens this fall, her neighbors will be able to walk there, preferably on sidewalks.
Folks in Como like to walk, but it can be a bit tricky, said Burton, who is the neighborhood president. There’s a hodgepodge network of paved walkways, like in many older Fort Worth districts where property owners may not have the money to maintain sidewalks. Horne Street, Como’s main street, lacks sidewalks on both sides south of Blackmore Avenue, while side streets like Littlepage and Humbert Avenue do not have any for several blocks.
“You can find folks walking around here pert-near any time of the day,” Burton said, adding that without sidewalks local drivers have grown accustomed to spotting walkers in the street. “It’s either step off into the road or walk through someone’s lot.”
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Property owners have to maintain sidewalks? Why aren't sidewalks just part of having a city street? During recent visits to what I refer to as Modern America, such as Arizona, I have long noted how new areas are developed, such as in Chandler, Arizona, the infrastructure goes in before the building goes up, as in roads, sidewalks, pocket parks, street landscaping. That type stuff.
Now, one can see how upgrading streets which were born back in Wild West times, as dirt trails, well, unless a town makes an effort to modernize those dirt trails as progress progresses, you know, by paving and adding sidewalks, well, you end up with a mess like Fort Worth. A town where most of the town's streets have no sidewalks.
The article tells us the Fort Worth City Council's 2020 budget approved a whopping $750.000 for sidewalk work.
$750,000.
A town populated by over 800,000 potential walkers next year will invest a measly three quarters of a million bucks addressing the town's sidewalk shortage.
And that whopping figure is on top of the $12 million allocated for sidewalks in a 2018 bond election.
Did I mention this is a town with a population over 800,000?
A town in which some clueless town leaders wonder why the town can not attract corporations to locate a headquarters in town, or even a branch?
The following paragraph makes clear how ridiculously absurdly bad this Fort Worth sidewalk shortage is...
Fort Worth has around 2,500 miles of existing sidewalks, but 3,395 miles of gaps — areas where no sidewalk exists. Most of those gaps, more than 2,000 miles worth, are in majority-minority neighborhoods, according to a city analysis.
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What in the world is a majority-minority neighborhood? Does the Star-Telegram no longer employ editors? When I lived in far east Fort Worth was that a majority-minority neighborhood? I have no idea. I saw Americans of all types in the neighborhood.
And few sidewalks...
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