No. In the image on the left you are not looking at an artist's rendering of what Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle will look like if it ever becomes anything anyone can see.
What you are looking at is an artist's rendering of what my old hometown of Mount Vernon's Skagit River Vision, known as the Downtown Mount Vernon Flood Protection and Revitalization Project, will look like when Phase II of the Skagit River Vision, which had its groundbreaking ceremony this past Saturday, is completed by Fall of 2014.
In an extremely significant difference between the Skagit River Vision and the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, the Skagit River Vision includes public restrooms, of the modern plumbing sort, not the outhouse sort favored by Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.
Unlike when some minor aspect of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has a ground breaking ceremony, such as what was
recently held for the future site of the Major Ripley Allen Arnold Monument and the John V. McMilllan Plaza, I don't believe any historic ground blessing from a local Native American took place in Mount Vernon, even though there are three tribal nations in the Skagit Valley, those being the Swinomish, the Skagit and the Samish.
The Skagit River Vision appears to have what is known as a construction timeline.
Phase I was completed in October of 2010. Phase II is now under way, and includes a floodwall engineered to protect historic downtown Mount Vernon, 1,650 linear feet of floodwall, 24-ft wide riverwalk and trail connections to the regional trail system and 30,000 square foot Public Riverfront Park.
Imagine that, a River Vision that includes an actual much needed flood control project.
Twice in the 1990s I joined the throngs sandbagging downtown Mount Vernon in the middle of the night. The Trinity River has gone into flood mode several times since I've been in Texas. I don't recollect there ever being a call out for sandbagging help in the downtown Fort Worth Trinity River Vision Boondoggle zone where millions are proposed to be spent to prevent floods where no flood has happened for over a half a century.
Meanwhile, I have read, more than once, of sandbagging operations in Fort Worth's next door neighbor town of Haltom City. But, the Tarrant Regional Water District has no vision for Haltom City that might mitigate flooding.
Phase III of the Skagit River Vision gets under way in 2014. It includes more floodwall, a section of earthen levee, more riverwalk and trail connections to the regional trail system.
How come there is no timeline for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle? Or is there and I've not heard of it? No timeline has ever shown up in any of the TRV Boondoggle's quarterly propaganda mailings.
I've blogged about my perplexation regarding the apparent lack of a TRV Boondoggle timeline previously, in a blogging titled
Can Anyone Find A Timeline Schedule Of Construction For The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle?
Can you imagine how the locals might have reacted if in, I don't know, let's say 2006, the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle propaganda shared a timeline that showed in 2010 the world's premiere urban wakeboard lake would open, in 2011 a restaurant would open, in 2012 Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats would start up on the Trinity River in some make believe thing called Panther Island Pavilion, which would make Fort Worth into a world class music venue and in 2013 the world's first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century would open?
Would not this information, in a 2006 timeline, have made the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle into the laughingstock, with the locals, which it richly deserves to be?
If the TRV Boondoggle published a project timeline in 2013, what would we see? We know about the non-signature bridges that are supposedly going to be under construction, soon, across the un-needed flood control diversion channel. What will we be seeing in 2015? The world's biggest trampoline park? Another restaurant? A paintball park? The longest go-kart track in the world?
So, really, what is the timeline for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle? What phase of this un-needed flood control project are we at now? Does anyone know? The TRV Boondoggle is well over a decade old now. Should there not be something more to see in the vision than a wakeboard lake, a restaurant, inner tubes floating, a lame music venue, a drive-in movie theater and a lot of property taken by abusing eminent domain?
Is there any sort of concise project description of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle of the sort that describes the Skagit River Vision? Such as.....
The Downtown Mount Vernon Flood Protection and Revitalization Project will protect Mount Vernon's historic downtown from flooding with FEMA certified flood protection and serve to revitalize the historic downtown area. The project will remove the downtown from the FEMA 100-year base flood elevation and will release pent up economic opportunities that are so important to our region. The project is the key component of the comprehensive downtown redevelopment plan that is being used to guide public and private investments over the next 20 years. The Project, which features a river promenade, trail system and public riverfront park, is being done in three phases.
Below is an artist's rendering video of the Skagit River Vision. Does such a video exist of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle? Mount Vernon has a population of around 30,000. Fort Worth has a population approaching 800,000. How is it that Mount Vernon appears to be wearing big city britches whilst Fort Worth is still in knee pants? It is very perplexing....
