My initial reaction was, what? Another tunnel under downtown Seattle. And this one is that deep?
And then I read the article about the new Seattle tunnel, and that article put me in mind of something I have ruminated on multiple times previously, that being how things get done so differently in a town wearing its Big City Pants, compared to how things slowly sort of get done, in a town like Fort Worth, Texas, a town which definitely does not wear Big City Pants.
Fort Worth has been trying to build something called the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision for most of this century.
In 2014, that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle began trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land. Those bridges took seven years to build. Meanwhile, in Seattle, at the same time Fort Worth started trying to build three bridges over dry land, a transit tunnel began to be bored under Seattle. That tunnel was finished and being used years before Fort Worth finished those three simple bridges.
The Seattle tunnel project was fully funding before boring began. Fort Worth's ongoing Boondoggle languished for years, awaiting federal funds to pay for it. Funds which did not arrive, even with Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger, motivated to secure those funds by hiring her son to be Executive Director of the project.
The federal funding finally got approved due to the infrastructure bill which Granger voted against.
The Trinity River Vision was touted as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. Even though it was in an area which has not flooded for well over half a century, due to flood control levees already in place.
From the start I have not understood why, if this was actually a vitally needed flood control project, combined with an economic development scheme, why did Fort Worth not vote to fund the project themselves, such as what happens in other parts of America?
The third paragraph of this Rolling in the deep: Sound Transit’s downtown Seattle tunnel would bring riders 145 feet below the street article showcases what I mean about how things get done in a town wearing its Big City Pants, as compared to a town which relies on federal welfare, even for something supposedly vitally needed.
The aforementioned third paragraph...
That new 3.3-mile central-city tunnel would be the core of the regional $54 billion ST3 program voters passed in 2016, to build 62 miles of light rail in three counties, plus commute-train and bus capacity, serving three-quarters of a million daily trips.
Imagine that, voters voting to pass a $54 billion program. The price tag for Fort Worth's ongoing Boondoggle is a little over $1 billion. The recent federal handout is only $403 million.
Fort Worth could not find a way to come up with $403 million on its own? For this vitally needed flood control? Allowing this supposedly vitally needed flood control to go un-done for over two decades, after announcing the plan?
You reading this in modern America may be amused when I tell you that when this public works project was announced, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sunday edition touted it with a HUGE banner front page headline...
I remember when I saw this headline thinking to myself what fresh nonsense is this? Never imagining the nonsense would become as ridiculously nonsensical as it has turned out to be...
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