No Hand Washing In Fort Worth City Parks

Yesterday when I got goosed in Lucy Park I took a picture of the sign you see here. A couple days ago I blogged about the wayfinding signage one finds all over Wichita Falls.

This would be another example of that wayfinding signage.

Can you spot the item on this sign that one would be unlikely to find in a Fort Worth park?

Okay, well, I guess one would not find a Fort Worth park sign pointing one to a waterfall, a park named O'Reilly or a place called Lucy Land.

But, it is a sign pointing toward "Restrooms" which I am focused on, which one is unlikely to find in a Fort Worth park.

One also is unlikely to find a sign pointing one to running water where one might get a drink or wash ones hands after using one of Fort Worth's parks many outhouses.

During my month of staying in North Richland Hills, prior to the move to Wichita Falls, I discovered that all the parks I visited, big and small, in the suburbs of Fort Worth, towns like Haltom City, Watauga, Keller and NRH had modern facilities in their parks.

In Wichita Falls all the parks I have visited have modern facilities. Including many drinking fountains.

Fort Worth's primitive parks came to mind a couple days ago when I saw the following in the Seattle Times.

Does the FDA know that there is a big American city with parks with picnic facilities with no modern facilities, including no running water?

Now, I know Fort Worth is under some sort of bizarre protective bubble which makes the town immune from the laws which govern the democratic, modern areas of America, hence corrupt judges, corrupt courts, corrupt public works projects and corrupt swindles, like the Chesapeake Energy debacle.

But, shouldn't some state or federal agency intervene in Fort Worth for public safety's sake? And make the town either close its parks lacking modern facilities, or install such amenities.

A few paragraphs from the Seattle Times article about the FDA's complaint about Horizon Air's lack of onboard hand-washing ability, with the points being made also applicable to the lack of running water in Fort Worth's parks...

Wash your hands. It’s an instruction that takes a bit of reminding for elementary-school children and commercial airlines alike, apparently.

Without hand-washing facilities, the lavatories are not sufficient for employees to handle food and ice, the agency said in a tersely worded letter, and “can increase the potential spread of communicable disease.”

“People are in close contact. All it takes is one person with an infection and it can easily spread on an airplane,” he said. “Hand-washing is one of those things you can’t do without.”

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Hand-washing is one of those things you can't do without? Unless you have the misfortune to be picnicking in one of Fort Worth's city parks....

Yet One More Look At Fort Worth's Gateway Park Closed To The Public Eyesore Areas

Those are my handlebars at Gateway Park, today, in front of one of the worst eyesores among any of the many eyesores in Fort Worth's parks.

I think Fort Worth park eyesore #1 is Heritage Park in downtown Fort Worth. I think it earns the number one spot due to the number of years Heritage Park has been a cyclone fence surrounded boarded up mess and the fact that Heritage Park is in the downtown zone of the city some of the locals think is one of the Greatest Cities in the World.

The fact that these type eyesores are allowed to fester, for years, in what is believed (locally, by some) to be one of the Greatest Cities in the World, is quite perplexing.

The Areas Closed to the Public in Gateway Park have been closed for years, ever since the remnants of Hurricane Hermine caused the Trinity River to go in to flood mode.

If I remember right the Gateway Park Boardwalks were already boarded up, pre-Hermine. Due to Hermine sections of the paved trail were lost to the flooding river, with cyclone fence and Area Closed to the Public signs added.

All these years later the majority of the Gateway Park paved trails still have "Trail Temporarily Closed" signs at the entries to the trails. The trail closed signs are basically ignored, with dirt path worn in replacement of the washed out sections of paved trails.

Near the Fort Woof Dog Park in Gateway Park there is a HUGE installation of Trinity River Vision Boondoggle propaganda touting the Gateway Park Master Plan part of the TRV Boondoggle.

Does anyone actually believe that any of that which is touted in the TRV Boondoggle Gateway Park Master Plan propaganda installation will actually come to pass?

Is so when?

If, currently, the city can not even manage to keep the existing park repaired, how in the world can this extremely ambitious Gateway Park Master Plan ever come to fruition?

Go to a blogging from March 31, 2009, titled Gateway Park's Failing Boardwalks & Fort Woof to get a look at the Gateway Park Boardwalks 4 years ago.

Go to a blogging from October, 10, 2009 titled Fort Worth's Gateway Park Master Plan, Abandoned Boardwalks & Dogs for another long ago look at Gateway Park's Boardwalk eyesores.

Go to a blogging from October 8, 2010 titled The Trinity River Vision's Gateway Park Vision for a look at the TRVB propaganda installation.

Go to a blogging from December 3, 2011 titled Walking In The Rain In Gateway Park Looking For Fort Worth City Gas Lease Revenue In Action for another look at the TRVB Gateway Park propaganda and the washed out paved trails still closed to the public.

Go to a blogging from August 13, 2012 titled The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Gateway Park Master Plan Propaganda for another look at the TRVB Gateway Park propaganda.

Go to a blogging from December 18, 2012 titled Biking Gateway Park Freshly Amused By Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Propaganda for more details of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Master  Plan for Gateway Park.

Crossing The Street To Discover A New Fort Worth Park

My one longtime reader may look at the picture on the left and think it must be a new view of Lake Tandy in the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

My one longtime reader would be wrong.

That is newly christened Canyon Creek Lake you are looking at.

Today I took another walk in my neighborhood to find that all this time I have been living across the street from a big area that is a lot like the Tandy Hills, but with no trails.

I do not know if the lack of trails makes the newly discovered Canyon Creek Natural Area more or less natural than the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

In addition to having a seriously sad sidewalk shortage situation, East Fort Worth also suffers from a seriously sad park shortage situation. The seriously sad park shortage situation seems particularly sad to be existing in what we learned yesterday is one of the greatest cities in the entire world.

It seems to me that the Canyon Creek Natural Area could quite easily be turned into a very nice park.

For years there have been two large signs advertising the fact that this acreage is for sale, saying that the land is a prime location for developers.

I think Canyon Creek is a prime location for developers of the sort who develop parks.

Why does the far east zone of Fort Worth have such a serious park shortage? The next town to the east, Arlington, seems to have many more parks than the much bigger town of Fort Worth. And Arlington is not known the world over as one of the world's greatest cities.

River Legacy Park, in Arlington, is a HUGE park, spanning the north and south banks of the Trinity River for miles. Just a short distance from River Legacy Park is one of Arlington's newest parks, that being Crystal Canyon Park.

Both River Legacy Park and Crystal Canyon Park are parks at a quality level higher than any park I've seen in Fort Worth.

I almost forgot to add, the easiest entry to what could be a new park in East Fort Worth, Canyon Creek Park, can be found on the north side of Boca Raton Boulevard a sort distance west of Boca Raton's intersection with Bridgewood Drive.

Nine Months After Tropical Storm Hermine Flooded The Trinity River Fort Worth's Gateway Park Trails Are Still Closed

I do not think I'd been in Gateway Park, in 2011, til today.

My last time in Gateway Park may have been in October of 2010, when I pedaled my bike past the Trail Closed/Do Not Enter signs to see why the trail was closed.

The Gateway Park trails were damaged by the flooding Trinity River, swollen due to Tropical Storm Hermine, way back in September of 2010.

I was surprised when I pulled into the Gateway Park parking lot, 9 months after Tropical Storm Hermine, to see the trail still barricaded, with a "TRAIL IS CLOSED TEMPORARILY FOR MAINTENANCE DO NOT ENTER" sign.

Well, I was in a scofflaw sort of mood, so I entered.

When I pedaled my bike in to see what was closing the trail, way back in October of last year, the damaged parts of the trail were blocked by logs laid across the trail. It was not much of a barrier. Now, 9 months later, I guess as part of the extensive maintenance project, chain link fence blocks off the damaged areas. As you can see, in the picture, it is very easy to go around the area where the rampaging river has eroded the river bank right up to the trail.

Above is another section of the trail, damaged, blocked off by chain link fence. And easy to get around.

Above we see a section of the Gateway Park trail that is not part of the Tropical Storm Hermine damage. This area was damaged and repaired years ago. Note how easy that repair is. Simply lay some new sidewalk  on the non-river side of the trail.

So, 9 months later, why has this not been done to the Tropical Storm Hermine damaged areas? And, in the previously repaired section, why has the chain link fence not been taken down and the old section of sidewalk removed?

How much did all that chain link fence cost, plus the labor to install it? As opposed to the cost of installing a new replacement trail?

There seems to be a pattern with Fort Worth's parks. When a Fort Worth park has a problem, the city puts chain link fence around the problem, like what's been done to downtown Fort Worth's Heritage Park.

And calls it "MAINTENANCE."