New Look At Fort Worth's Multi-Decade Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

It has been a while since I have read an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about America's Dumbest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, or TRV for super short.

A couple days ago I found myself writing a blog post titled New Zealand Family's Seattle Visit Reminds Me Of Fort Worth's Infamous Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, written after seeing the result of a successful public works project completed in a more modern area of America, then finding myself comparing that project to what many simply refer to as The Boondoggle.

And then, ironically, the very day I posted the blog post referencing Fort Worth's embarrassing Trinity River Vision mess, the Star-Telegram publishes an article about the current state of The Boondoggle, in typical Star-Telegram faulty information fashion.

I suspect the reporter writing this article is new to Fort Worth, and the Star-Telegram, and thus does not have a well-developed ear for hearing nonsense.

We are now in the third decade of what has become America's Oldest Boondoggle. Over the years I have written dozens of posts about this subject. Just go to the Durango Texas blog and enter "TNT exploding ceremony" into the search function, or "Kay Granger Boondoggle" and you will come up with many of those posts about this subject.

Now, something I have not made mention of during the many years of writing these blog posts about America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Over the years I have been sent information from persons close to the problem. As in, someone with access inside J.D. Granger's inner Trinity River Vision operation. I referred to this person as Deep Moat. I was told a couple times, by a couple sources, that the TRWD and the TRV were annoyed, a time or two, by things they saw on my blog.

Also, regarding the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, someone working for that newspaper, anonymous to me, has long found my making fun of that newspaper to be amusing. And accurate. It has not happened for a couple years, but yesterday it did. That person, who they are, I do not know, sent me the link to this new article about The Boondoggle, a link I am not blocked from reading. I assume I would always have been able to read the Star-Telegram, if I was a subscriber, but I cancelled the hard copy long ago.

Anyway, I clicked the Fort Worth’s Panther Island riverfront project has seen years of delays. What’s next? and read it. And copied it.

I then messaged Elsie Hotpepper, asking if Elsie had read this latest, because her dear departed friend, Clyde Picht, is quoted. Elsie then asked for the link. I sent it. But, for her, she was blocked. I then sent Elsie the copied article.

Interesting that the Star-Telegram successfully blocks Elsie Hotpepper, but not me.

Anyway, let's now go through some of this article and comment as we read along. Let's begin with the first paragraph...

Government officials and curious citizens left no seats empty in Fort Worth’s city hall chamber on April 5, 2005. That day, then-Mayor Mike Moncrief locked horns with skeptical City Council members over the purpose and price of the “Trinity River Vision,” a grand plan to revamp the river’s flood control system and transform a sliver of the waterway twisting around downtown into a haven of urban leisure and recreation.

2005. Two decades ago. And that is years after The Boondoggle actually began. Flood control system? This project was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. So vitally needed, almost three decades later, little has been done. So vitally needed, the public was not asked to support it via a bond issue.

Moving on, the next paragraph...

Fort Worth’s powerful optimists first fleshed out plans for the venture the year before. Moncrief and fellow proponents hailed the undertaking, later rechristened Panther Island, as “the most significant local project since construction of Dallas/Fort Worth airport.” “Everyone feels the synergy of this project,” Moncrief told the audience in city hall, among them Panther Island champion U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. “They realize this will create a new gateway ... a new face for future generations.” Doubters weren’t sold on the mayor’s lofty aspirations. “I think the final cost of the project will be substantially higher” than the original $360 million price tag (around $613 million today), said council member Clyde Picht during the hearing.

The "later rechristened Panther Island" remark is what made me think this reporter is new to The Boondoggle. This pseudo public works project started out being called the Trinity River Vision. Then Uptown was added to the name. Then Central City. Then Panther Island District. I do not believe the project has ever been somehow rechristened as Panther Island. Such is just how some have come to refer to it, even though it is an imaginary island which no sane part of the world would refer to as such.

Moving on to the next paragraph...

The project’s budget ballooned to $1.17 billion around 2017 (a figure still listed in project documents today despite inflationary pressures). The most hopeful Panther Island advocates in the early 2000s expected a pocket of high-rises and tree-lined promenades to take form by the end of the decade. No development has happened since. The Tarrant Regional Water District has yet to acquire 23% of the land within Panther Island’s future boundaries; the body agreed in December to pay a real estate consulting firm $1 million to start thinking up a strategy for selling off land to interested developers.

Just the info contained in the above paragraph, one would think, is enough to make one think maybe it is time to just kill this embarrassing failure. The "no development has happened since" line is so telling. Basically, little real development has happened for almost three decades, not in the way developments happen in parts of the world known to be more, well, developed.

It gets worse. Next paragraph...

Much of the new flood control system has yet to be completed. TRWD and the other bodies tasked with bringing Panther Island’s renditions to life predicted in 2018 that every dam, channel and storage pond would be complete by 2028. The project’s latest completion date, as of June, is 2032.

Much of the flood control system is yet to be completed? Remember? This was originally touted as a vitally needed flood control project, to control floods in a section of the Trinity River which had not flooded for well over a half century due to levees installed in the 1950s. And now the completion date is in the next decade.

The final paragraph...

Past delays foreshadowed current ones. It took the Texas Department of Transportation roughly six years and $126.2 million to complete three bridges designed to funnel traffic to and from the island. Construction for the structures, totaling less than a mile in length, began in November 2015, with tentative completion dates set between 2017 and 2018. “This was a bad deal early on,” Picht said of Panther Island in 2018, a few years before he died. “It’s probably the worst managed public project in the state of Texas, if not the nation.” Where exactly do things stand today?

Why is the Star-Telegram blaming the Texas Department of Transportation for taking so long to build the simple little bridges? Did not the actual fault lie with the incompetent leadership of the TRV? As in, Kay Granger's son, J.D., made Executive Director, to motivate his mother to try and secure federal funds? J.D. Granger insisted the design of the bridges have these totally ordinary V-piers, which J.D. thought would make them Signature Bridges, which was part of the original Trinity River Vision, having Three Signature Bridges, matching the Dallas Trinity River Vision's proposed Three Signature Bridges, which was the actual start of The Boondoggle, Fort Worth once again trying to keep up with Dallas.

And failing.

Dallas did end up building two actual signature bridges, which add a cool looking element to the Dallas skyline.

As for The Boondoggle's employment of Kay Granger's son. Kay never did come up with federal funding. And when a Biden bill, the Infrastructure Bill, passed, sending funding to Fort Worth's un-funded project, Kay voted no. J.D. was then fired, given a $72,000 parting gift, and is now trying to open a restaurant.

Meanwhile, I have another nugget of news, sent to me anonymously, which I have no way of verifying, but which makes sense to me.

I have been told the real reason the Trinity River Vision project has stalled is due to serious engineering complications. When the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in, again, after those three little bridges were built over dry land, with a cement lined ditch to later be dug under them, an obvious issue became apparent.

As in, the cement lined ditch should have been built at the same time as the bridges. To dig under the bridges now presents serious engineering issues, as in without sufficient mitigations, digging under the bridges could cause a bridge collapse.

And so, the project is stalled, with the current funding now in limbo due to the project's ineptness, poor planning and bad design.

And, might I add. I have long predicted that eventually we will get to the point where it is realized the ground in the Panther Island zone is seriously contaminated, due to being a former industrial zone. There have already been some indications of this. I suspect it would take an EPA Superfund cleanup, which will likely never happen.

It is time for Fort Worth to kill this project, clean up the mess it has made, and get around to finally, at least, fixing Heritage Park, the boarded-up eyesore at the north end of downtown, a park celebrating Fort Worth's heritage, which, ironically, overlooks America's Biggest Boondoggle....

A Look At Washington's San Juan Islands Takes Us To Fort Worth's Imaginary Island

I saw this view you see here, yesterday, on Facebook. A view looking east across some of the San Juan Islands, with the Mount Baker volcano towering over the scene. I grew up in the land between that volcano and the San Juan Islands.

I think it was the fact of growing up totally aware of what an island is, and looks like, that had me appalled near the beginning of this century, when the town I was then living in, at the time, Fort Worth, Texas, began a bizarre pseudo public works project hoping to divert water from the Trinity River, around a section of land, on the north end of downtown Fort Worth.

Creating an imaginary island.

Which already came to become called Panther Island. Even though that proposed water diversion has not yet happened, with a cement lined ditch, filled with Trinity River water, creating the imaginary island, with three bridges then connecting the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island.

So far, those three freeway overpass type bridges are the main thing that has been completed in what became known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Or America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Near one of those bridges the Vision did see a roundabout built, with a million-dollar reflective homage to an aluminum trash can installed at the center of the roundabout.

Is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram still investigating trying to find out how it came to be that a million bucks was paid to buy that work of art?

For years, the entity known in short form as the Trinity River Vision employed J.D. Granger as the Vision's Executive Director. Granger is the son of Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger. It was thought giving Kay's son a high paying job overseeing the Vision that it would motivate Kay to support federal funding of Fort Worth's Boondoggle.

However, Kay never managed to help secure that funding. And then meandering moved Kay's congressional district out of the area of Fort Worth's Boondoggle. And so, J.D. Granger lost his Executive Director job after accomplishing little for so long.

Ironically, as part of the Biden Administration's massive Infrastructure bill, federal funding was secured, sort of, for Fort Worth's infamous Boondoggle. Adding to the irony, Kay Granger voted against the Infrastructure bill, what with her son no longer being gainfully employed executively directing the Boondoggle.

As the decades of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision have limped along, I have often wondered if the Fort Worth locals just do not understand what an island is. 

The Wikipedia article about Washington's San Juan Islands gives one a good idea of what actual islands are. Some blurbs from that article...

The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the U.S. state of Washington known for rural Pacific Northwest landscapes and wildlife. Horseshoe-shaped Orcas Island, one of the main isles, is home to Moran State Park's old-growth forest and Mt. Constitution. San Juan Island is distinguished by the lively seaside town of Friday Harbor and Lime Kiln Point State Park, an orca-whale lookout.

At mean high tide, the San Juan Islands comprise over 400 islands and rocks, 128 of which are named, and over 478 miles (769 km) of shoreline.

In the archipelago, four islands are accessible to vehicular and foot traffic via the Washington State Ferries system.

An archipelago with over 400 islands, 128 islands with names. Not one named Panther Island. One is named Orcas, though, named after Puget Sound's beloved killer whales. Four islands accessible by ferry boat. 

One will not need a ferry boat to get to Fort Worth's imaginary island. All you'll need, if the "island" ever happens, is a car, to drive over one of the three little bridges which cross over the cement-lined ditch...

McNutt's Real Island View Of The Mount Baker Volcano

Currently the former Washingtonian, currently a Virginian, known as that whackydoodle McNutt woman, is visiting her old home zone. 

For the first part of her Washington visit the McNutter is staying on Camano Island at the home of an aunt and uncle. 

Camano Island is a real island, located in Puget Sound. Not an imaginary island of the Fort Worth, Texas sort, where a chunk of land is being called an island, Panther Island to be exact.

But, currently Panther Island is not surrounded by any water. 

However, the chunk of land is already referred to as an island, in anticipation that one day a cement lined ditch might appear, filled with diverted Trinity River water, flowing under three freeway overpass type bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island.

A bridge is what gives one access to Camano Island, a bridge which crosses actual water.

The above photo is the view from McNutt's Uncle's deck, looking northeast across Puget Sound. You can see the Mount Baker volcano in the distance.

I see no volcanoes, in any direction I look, at my current location...

Seeing Mount Baker Takes Me To Fir Island & Fort Worth's Imaginary Panther Island

I never tire of seeing photos from my old home zone, especially photos of Mount Baker, a volcano I used to be able to see from my living room windows in Mount Vernon.

I saw the instance you see here, this morning, on Facebook. The view is either from some location on the Skagit Flats, or from Fir Island.

Fir Island is a real island, not an imaginary island, such as one day the town of Fort Worth, Texas hopes to see.

Fort Worth's imaginary island will be claiming to be such after a cement lined ditch is dug, with Trinity River water diverted into that ditch.

Ironically, Fir Island also is created by being surrounded by river water. At Fir Island the Skagit River splits into two forks, the North and South Forks of the Skagit River.

Wikipedia has an article about Fir Island. The article makes mention of the worst natural disaster I have witnessed up close. In the early 1990s a Pineapple Express brought extreme flooding to Western Washington.

The flooding was so extreme that the flood level was predicted to inundate downtown Mount Vernon. So, hundreds of people helped build a sandbag wall to try and hold back the flood. I was watching the 11 o'clock news when it went live to Mount Vernon, showing the feverish activity, filling sandbags, including sailors from the Navy base on Whidbey Island.

By midnight I was in downtown Mount Vernon, helping to build the sandbag wall. The wall was complete around 3 in the morning.

The flood crest was expected to hit Mount Vernon around 11 in the morning. At that point of time I joined the huge crowd, waiting on high ground for the crest to happen. You could see the river was about to go over the sandbag wall, when, suddenly, the river level dropped a couple feet.

No one knew what had happened. Soon, there were sirens blaring. At one point I remember seeing a helicopter with a cow strapped in below it. I do not remember how long it was til we learned the dike at Fir Island had failed, flooding the island.

There is currently no Wikipedia about Fort Worth's imaginary Panther Island. I doubt there ever will be...

Forters Living In The Unexpected City With The Imaginary Island

An amusing comment today, from someone named Anonymous, about a blog post yesterday about Fort Worth's imaginary island and the latest vision of the imaginary island, which is remarkably close to the original vision which was first seen over two decades ago.

The new vision sees a one-of-a-kind waterfront. Which, one must assume, means it will not be a waterfront of the sort which has piers jutting out into the water, with big boats, like cruise ships and ferry boats, docking at the piers.

Here is the comment from Anonymous....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Fort Worth's One Of A Kind Waterfront On An Imaginary Island":

Muckrack.com ranks the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's circulation as the 26th biggest in the state of Texas. The 13th biggest city(Fort Worth) in the US has only the 26th biggest newspaper in Texas. The unexpected city! C'mon, Forters, you can do better. Let's get that collective effervescence going! Let's go, go, go. LFG!

Muckrack, by the way, is trusted by companies like Google, NPR, The New York Times, VISA, FedEx and many other top flight organizations.

Forters, by the way, is the latest and greatest demonym for people living in Fort Worth the unexpected city.

______________________

I have zero clue as to why Fort Worth is the unexpected city. But, I have heard that said previously, more than once...

Fort Worth's One Of A Kind Waterfront On An Imaginary Island

That which you see here is a screencap from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Thursday March 7, 2024 online edition.

I was unable to read the Star-Telegram's article about this supposed new vision of the Trinity River Vision.

But I was able to read all about the new vision in the Fort Worth Report, it being a more journalistically elevated local news source than the Star-Telegram.

The Fort Worth Report article is titled Fort Worth leaders reveal new roadmap for developing Panther Island. Where does it lead?

Reading the article, I was not really able to glean where this new roadmap is leading. 

This supposed new vision seems to be pretty much like the previous vision. An imaginary island, with multiple parks, residential developments, commercial development, hoping to entice a corporation to move its corporate headquarters to the imaginary island.

This new vision reads as a bit hyperbolic, just like the old vision did, with its quarterly propaganda mailings touting the slow progress and the wonders to come with the slow-moving Boondoggle.

"One of a kind waterfront' is an example of the new vision's hyperbolic propaganda.

Waterfront? Have these people not been to a town with an actual waterfront, you know, of the sort where ferry boats and cruise ships and other boats arrive and depart.

Towns like Galveston, Corpus Christi, to name a couple Texas examples.

I do not think San Antonio ever describes its iconic Riverwalk as a waterfront.

See that little bridge in the screencap from the Star-Telegram. That is one of three little bridges which took an astonishing seven years to build. Over dry land. Awaiting a cement-lined ditch to be dug under the bridges, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, creating the imaginary island, with the three bridges connecting the Fort Worth mainland to the imaginary island.

It is hard to believe this nonsense has been going on now for well over two decades, with no end in sight...

A View Of Deception Pass Takes Us To Fort Worth's Boondoggle

I saw that which you see here, this morning, on Facebook. A bird's eye view of Deception Pass in my former home zone of Washington state.

That straight line you see connecting the land mass on the right with the land mass on the left is Deception Pass Bridge. 

Deception Pass Bridge was built almost a century ago, in less than one year, over deep, swift moving saltwater.

All the land masses you see above are islands. The large land mass on the right is Fidalgo Island, connected to Whidbey Island by the Deception Pass Bridge.

I think being familiar with the concept of actual islands may be why I have long found Fort Worth's imaginary island to be so idiotically annoying. For years now a desolate chunk of land north of Fort Worth's downtown has been referred to as Panther Island.

Where there is no island.

This chunk of desolate land is referred to as Panther Island because of a ridiculous slow motion project which has been limping along since the current century began, known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Referred to by many Fort Worth locals as The Boondoggle.

Many years ago Fort Worth had itself a TNT explosion celebrating the start of construction of three simple freeway overpass type bridges, over dry land, connecting the Fort Worth mainland to the imaginary island.

It took over seven years for Fort Worth to build those three simple little bridges. Over dry land.

The Trinity River Vision hopes to one day see a cement lined ditch under those three bridges. Ditches in which Trinity River water will be diverted, thus creating that imaginary island, which will never be an actual island in the rational meaning of the island word.

Fort Worth has a long history of this type of hyperbole. Starting with the town's name. There is no fort in Fort Worth. There once was a Camp Worth, back in the early days when the native population was still in the neighborhood.

When I first moved to the D/FW zone, myself and my fellow transplants, were perplexed by directional signage in downtown Fort Worth pointing to Sundance Square. There was no square in Sundance Square, confusing the town's few tourists.

And then, after confusing those few tourists for a few decades, an actual square was added to Sundance Square, called Sundance Square Plaza.

And now, in 2023, Fort Worth's few tourists are confused by signage pointing to Panther Island, where there is no island... 

Fort Worth's Imaginary Island Vision Is Changing

Yesterday Fort Worth's Miss Shiloh asked me if I'd heard anything of late about that which is usually referred to as Fort Worth's Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision Boondoggle.

I told Miss Shiloh that til that very day, as in yesterday, Friday, August 4, 2023, it had been a while since I had heard or read anything about Fort Worth's embarrassing Boondoggle.

So, yesterday Fort Worth's sad excuse for a newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, had a banner headline on the front page announcing that The vision for Fort Worth’s Panther Island is changing. Here’s what a new report says.

Reading this article it quickly became apparent it was a stereotypical Star-Telegram example of bad journalism, rendered more as mindless propaganda, than the seeking of actual facts.

Let's go through this article and see what we think...

The vision for Fort Worth’s future Panther Island development is evolving, based on a consultant firm’s new report that describes the massive project as a “once-in-a-generation city-building opportunity.”

The $1.1 billion public investment to mitigate Trinity River flooding by building new channels will open up more than 5 miles of shoreline and 200 acres for development just north of downtown. As originally conceived, Panther Island’s development would be focused on dense residential buildings with some commercial.

That should be reconsidered, the consultants find, as Fort Worth has seen tremendous growth, market changes and shifts in priorities for the city center since the project’s germination decades ago.

A massive project? Once in a generation city building opportunity? This Boondoggle has already been Boondoggling along for one generation, as in over two decades. Originally sold as a vitally needed flood control and economic development, where there had been no flooding for over half a century due to flood control levees already installed.

Opening up more that 5 miles of shoreline? Shoreline? Are we referring to a riverbank as shoreline? Or is a little lake back in the vision? With that little lake providing the over 5 miles of imaginary shoreline on the imaginary island?

During the course of the Boondoggle's Boondoggling how many consulting firms have been consulted, generating how many reports, costing how much money?

$1.1 billion public investment? To mitigate Trinity River flooding where it has not flooded since the 1950s? Investment? By the public? I have long opined if this was an actual vitally needed flood control and economic developments scheme why has it not been funded in the way towns wearing their big city pants, get things done? Instead, Fort Worth has been panhandling for federal money for years. And the Fort Worth public has never voted on this Boondoggle, in the manner which happens in a more functional town.

Instead of selling the public on a bond issue to finance this supposed vitally needed flood control economic development scheme, the job of being the Executive Director of the project was given to a local congresswoman's unqualified son, to motivate the mother to seek federal funding. 

Eventually some federal funding was approved, part of Biden's infrastructure bill, which Congresswoman, Kay Granger voted no on. Kay's son, J.D. Granger's employment with the Boondoggle did not last long after it became apparent J.D.'s mother was of no help.

Continuing on from the article...

“Fort Worth is growing rapidly, with population surging 24% between 2010 and 2020, and is now the fastest growing large city in the U.S.,” the report says. “Panther Island is crucial to the region’s economic development. The scale and location can help capture and fuel long-term residential and employment growth.”

Fort Worth is the fastest growing city in the U.S.? By what metric one can not help but wonder. In the above photo, from the Star-Telegram article, you are looking at Panther Island, the imaginary island which currently is not surrounded by water, but one day may be, if a cement lined ditch is ever dug, creating a diversion channel to go under three little bridges currently bridging over dry land.

Panther Island is crucial to the region's economic development? Really? If so why has this project limped along for decades? Look at that skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth. To you does that look like the skyline of the fastest growing city in America?

I think I will just post the rest of this article and let you ferret out the absurdity on your own...

In January, the city of Fort Worth hired the consulting firm, HR&A Advisors, to serve as project manager and help coordinate the vision for future land use and economic development of Panther Island. The firm’s new report stresses the need for a unified development strategy for the more than 500 acres of public and privately owned land, as well as the need to avoid displacing surrounding communities such as the historic North Side.

Planners are moving away from the residential-focused original plans and instead envision a district with both residential and a vibrant entertainment hub, outdoor recreation and the potential to attract companies and talent to the city, HR&A’s report said.

Mixed use development usually includes a mix of residential units and anything from office space to restaurants to retail, Andrea Duffie, spokesperson with the city’s economic development department, said Thursday. For the Panther Island project, the intention is to create a “flexible space” where people can “live, work and play,” she said, but what that mixed use development is going to include beyond residential space has yet to be decided.

The district should be pedestrian-friendly and accessible through several different methods of transportation given the mix of large- and small-scale projects that could occur. The report said the district should be connected through “a walkable, interconnected open space network” for this reason.

The consultants say the district should have a recognizable and distinct identity while also complementing the adjacent downtown and connecting seamlessly with surrounding neighborhoods. Panther Island also contains multiple historic sites that could be uniquely redeveloped.

The full realization of development is still years away, but there are already signs of movement in and around the future island.

In July, an Austin-based commercial real estate company purchased 26 acres over nine parcels in an area known as Upstream at Panther Island, with several adjacent to a planned canal or waterfront. The firm, Seco Ventures, is now the single largest capital investor on the site.

Dallas-based Centergy Retail is proposing a residential tower in the Left Bank development off West Seventh Street, on a site that will face the future Trinity River channel.

And the recent news that the Autobahn luxury vehicle dealerships on White Settlement Road intend to relocate to Clearfork would open up two blocks along that corridor to new residential or commercial development within sight of Panther Island.

HR&A’s report released Thursday is the first step in its process. The firm will next explore different funding options for some outstanding infrastructure upgrades in partnership with the city and other district stakeholders.

Although conceived years ago, the project got an official greenlight in January 2022 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received $403 million from the federal government to create the bypass channel connecting two sections of the Trinity River.

“The pieces are really coming together for Panther Island,” Sturns said when HR&A was hired. “Local partners and the business community are making a strong economic development push at the district, but we want to be smart about how we do it.”

HR&A was selected by city partners who have taken a lead on the project, including Tarrant County, Tarrant Regional Water District, Tarrant County College, the Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth, Downtown Fort Worth Inc. and Streams and Valleys.

The national firm has offices in Dallas, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Raleigh and Washington D.C. Previous HR&A projects include Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park and other waterfront projects like Washington D.C.’s Anacostia River, the University of Texas research campus, Houston’s Buffalo Bayou and the Ion Innovation District near Rice University.

Elsie Hotpepper Takes Us Back To America's Biggest Boondoggle

Yesterday, Elsie Hotpepper tagged me in a Facebook post, which is what you see a screen shot of.

For decades now, Elsie and I have been blogging about the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

More commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The project to create an imaginary island has been going on for most of this century. I recollect the first time I found myself befuddled and appalled by this was a long ago Sunday edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with a HUGE banner headline touting "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH."    

What fresh ridiculous nonsense is this, I read and wondered? Who could have imagined the ridiculous nonsense could go on for so long, for decades, with little to show for the effort.

Well, there are those three little bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island. Those three little bridges are waiting for a cement lined ditch to be installed under them, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, making the imaginary island.

The article Elsie Hotpepper directed me to was in the Fort Worth Report, titled City of Fort Worth prepares to kickstart Panther Island development — again.

Just the title to this article struck me as odd. The city is preparing to kickstart America's Biggest Boondoggle again?

I was not aware the development had stalled. The last it was much in the news was when Congresswoman's Kay Granger's son, J.D., was removed from the executive director job he was totally not qualified to do, whilst being grossly overpaid, and then hired by the Boondoggle, post firing, to be a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle consultant for $12K a month.

The only other news about the Boondoggle that I can recollect in recent years is those three pitiful little bridges finally being completed, after seven years, that, and Fort Worth got $400 million from the Democrat's infrastructure bill, which J.D.'s mother voted against.

It has long bugged me that, if, as touted, this is a vitally needed flood control and economic project, why has it limped along in slow motion, begging for a federal funding, rather than voting to pay for the vitally needed project themselves, like town's wearing their big city pants do?

And, need we repeat, this vitally needed flood control project is in an area which has not flooded in well over half a century, due to flood control levees already in place, which you in the more prosperous parts of America, already paid for. While other areas of Fort Worth, as in East Fort Worth, and other areas of Tarrant County, have real, serious, un-addressed deadly flood control issues.

Now, let's take a look at some of the gems of nonsense from this article about America's Biggest Boondoggle...

The Central City Flood Project could transform a partially blighted expanse of land just north of downtown into about 440 acres of prime real estate — also known as the Panther Island Project. 

Could transform a blighted expanse of land? Could? After all this time, all this money, this project is stuck at could? And it is now known, simply, as the Panther Island Project? When did that happen? Whatever happened to the Trinity River Vision Authority, over which J.D. Granger was the Executive Director for years.

No mention is made in this article of the Trinity River Vision Authority.

Or J.D. Granger.

Or that J.D.'s mother voted against the funding that might finally give Fort Worth enough money to dig that cement lined ditch under those three bridges.

The project, which has experienced decades of delays, received over $400 million in federal funding this year, enough money to design and build two bypass channels. The corps recently projected the project will take eight to 10 years to complete.

Is there no investigative journalist in the Fort Worth vicinity who might want to look into why and how this project has experienced decades of delays? We are up to two bypass channels now? Taking another decade to complete? Yes, this seems very vitally needed.

And the nonsense continues...

The new strategic plan will be the second iteration of a plan for the Panther Island Project. The city and Tarrant Regional Water District initially developed its plan for the island, also known as the form-based code, in the early 2000s and revisited it in 2016 — all before the project received over $400 million from the federal government.

New strategic plan? Does anyone know what the old strategic plan was? The city and TRWD initially developed its plan for the island, known as form-based code? So, the new total name of America's Biggest Boondoggle is Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Form-Based Code Vision?

And then we have this doozy, including a Fort Worth staple...

A redevelopment project the size of Panther Island in the core of the city is unique, said Kenneth Barr, chair of the Real Estate Council. “Other cities would be very envious of us having the opportunity,” Barr said. 

Oh yes, many towns in America would be envious to have an industrial wasteland adjacent to their downtown. And another one east of their downtown. Most big cities do not develop with such tracts of wasteland adjacent to their downtowns. Hardly anything to be envious of.

And, finally...

“My vision for Panther Island is that it’d be a world-class place for tourists to come and visit and see the best of Fort Worth, but also a place where our local residents can enjoy and feel like it’s for them as well,” Landeros said. 

How can anyone who has been to an actual world-class tourist destination possibly think this imaginary island can ever possibly be such? Just look at that stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you see in the screen cap at the top. This is not a world-class town in any sense of the term....

Looking At Fort Worth's Imaginarily Funded Panther Island Riverwalk

A couple days ago Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to seeing that which you see above, on Facebook. I assume this is a screen cap from one of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision's many propaganda websites, touting the imaginary wonders of a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which is so vitally needed it has been limping along for most of this century.

The comments following this Facebook post covered most anything I might have to say about it, but, I shall toss in my two cents worth anyway.

First off. Privately funded? Really? When did that happen? If the funds were acquired privately, why was Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., hired as the Executive Director of this project, hoping to motivate his mother to secure federal funding? Which she failed to do, with federal funding not provided til the Biden Administration's infrastructure bill passed. 

A bill on which Kay Granger voted NO.

I do not know why J.D. Grange has not been fired, now that his use has been rendered obviously useless.

Panther Island Riverwalk?

So, we have now added a new qualifier to the ever growing name of this inept pseudo public works project.

The Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Riverwalk Vision. 

Isn't it just a tad embarrassing that Fort Worth does not come up with something original, instead of copying that world famous Riverwalk in San Antonio, a couple hundred miles south of Fort Worth?

Fort Worth has a bad habit of badly trying to copy things other towns are doing, or have done.

Before Fort Worth had its Trinity River Vision, Dallas, late in the previous century, initiated its Trinity River Project.

Here is a blurb from the Wikipedia article about the Dallas river project. See if you can spot the difference in the Dallas river project and the Fort Worth river project.

Voters approved a bond proposal to fund a major cleanup of the river, construction of park facilities, wildlife habitats, flood-protection devices such as levees, and related road construction. Once passed, a planning process began with construction on the project starting in 2005. Proponents believe this development will bring more life, commerce, revenue to the downtown Dallas region.

I'm sure you spotted the difference. Dallas voters approved a bond proposal, in the way towns wearing their Big City Pants get things done. Fort Worth voters have never been asked to vote on a bond proposal to fund that which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Another blurb from Wikipedia about the Dallas River Project...

The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava.

When Fort Worth foisted its Trinity River Vision on the unsuspecting public, the Vision copied the Dallas Vision in multiple ways. Including touting three signature bridges.

The Trinity River Vision continued touting those imaginary three iconic signature bridges for years. Until they began to be built in slow motion over dry land, with it apparent the three iconic signature bridges look like freeway overpasses, as you can see via the photo at the top of one of the Fort Worth imaginary signature bridges.

Meanwhile the Dallas Trinity River Project has managed to build two of their three actual iconic signature bridges, designed as originally touted, by acclaimed bridge architect Santiago Calatrava. Those two completed bridges have altered the Dallas skyline in an iconic way. And these bridges were built over actual water, not dry land.

Wikipedia used to have an article devoted to Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision. But, that article no longer exists. I suspect it was removed due to so many inaccuracies, and its blatant propaganda. That and a reference to herds of feral cats occupying the imaginary island.

Now, if you search on Wikipedia for that article about the Trinity River Vison you are brought to a blurb in the Wikipedia Trinity River article in which mention is made of the two town's Trinity River projects...

The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava.

A similar project is planned by the Tarrant Regional Water District, City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Streams & Valleys Inc., and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop an area north of "downtown" as "uptown" along the Trinity River. This plan promotes a large mixed-use development adjacent to the central city area of Fort Worth, with a goal to prevent urban sprawl by promoting the growth of a healthy, vibrant urban core. The Trinity River Vision lays the groundwork to enable Fort Worth's central business district to double in size over the next forty years.

I forgot to mention another thing that seems absurdly ridiculous in the propaganda verbiage from the Panther Island - Central City Flood Project website. That being that the "privately funded" project will also provide flood protection and save Fort Worth over $14 million in stormwater infrastructure needs.

Didn't Fort Worth voters vote to approve a proposal to pay for stormwater infrastructure needs? And didn't the Boondogglers try and claim that this approval was somehow a voter approval of the entire Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Riverwalk District Vision?

If the imaginary island ii privately funded why was federal funding needed to build the cement lined ditch under the three bridges currently stranded over dry land. If I remember right the amount Fort Worth is getting for its Boondoggle, from the Infrastructure bill, is something like $403 million. The total cost estimate of the entire Boondoggle is over $1 billion.

Is $403 million sufficient funding to build a river diversion channel? Which has not yet even been designed. This funding was approved without the usual requirement of a feasibility study being required. 

I suspect we will soon learn that it is not feasible to build that diversion channel for a relatively measly $403 million. Or the Army Corps of Engineers design team will determine it not possible to dig a channel under the completed bridges without compromising the structural integrity of the bridges.

And then there is the environmental cleanup aspect. How much of the imaginary island's industrial wasteland property has been properly analyzed for hazardous polluting contamination? EPA Superfund cleanups can get quite costly. Has that been factored into the actual final cost of this multi-decade Boondoggle?

Fort Worth really needs to see an optometrist about its Vision. I suspect the town may have cataracts...

After Decades Work Is Supposedly To Begin On Fort Worth's Panther Island Boondoggle

What?

Is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram really trying to sell propaganda that work on Fort Worth's imaginary island is about to begin?

About to begin?

I recollect that that which has become America's Biggest Dumbest Boondoggle began, decades ago, around the start of the new century.

And now, after all this time, the Star-Telegram is saying work is about to begin and asking when it can be expected to be done?

The Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District recently got a chunk of the infrastructure bill which recently passed. Something like $403 million, approved by the Army Corps of Engineers.

What?

Did that needed feasibility study get done and showed that this supposed flood control economic development scheme was feasible and within the normal scope of an Army Corps of Engineers project?

How does the Army Corps of Engineers explain this flood control project in an area which has not flooded for well over half a century, while other areas of Tarrant County have had deadly, property damaging floods?

And what becomes of J.D. Granger now? He was hired, years ago, as Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision, so as to give his mother, Congresswoman Kay Granger, motivation to secure federal funding for Fort Worth's ridiculous Boondoggle.

Kay Granger failed to deliver. And voted "NO" on the infrastructure bill.

J.D. Granger has been paid will over a million bucks, plus perks, and other benefits, during the course of this project which has limped along for years.

Does anyone actually know what J.D. Granger has done all these years which has warranted paying him over a million dollars?

And now that J.D. Granger has zero use as a motivation for his mother to seek federal funding, isn't it time to remove J.D. from this project?

The absurdity of an unqualified person being hired to oversee a public works project has been painfully obvious for years. Just about anytime J.D. Granger has said anything in the press or elsewhere it was apparent he was in way over his head.

I expect the next chapter in this ongoing Boondoggle to be something along the line of digging the diversion channel being far more complicated than originally thought, thus needing more money. 

And that when the cement lined flood diversion ditch is dug under the three bridges which took seven years to build, that the digging is going to cause a catastrophic failure of one of the bridges... 
 

Why No Federal Infrastructure Funding For Fort Worth's Imaginary Island?

What you are looking at here is a screen cap from the front page of the Sunday online Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

An editorial.

Titled...
 
As Washington spews $1.2 trillion for infrastructure, none for Panther Island. Why?

If you click the link you likely will not be able to get past the paywall. If such is the case the entire editorial is readable below.

The editorial is actually asking why the recently passed infrastructure bill sends no funds to Fort Worth for its imaginary island.

There are several answers to that why question.

First off, Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision is not a project of the sort for which the infrastructure  bill is intended.

Almost two decades ago the Trinity River Vision was foisted on the Fort Worth public without any sort of vote to support the project.

The project was touted as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme. Yet this vitally needed flood control is clearly not vitally needed, because, if it were, why has the project been floundering for almost two decades waiting for the rest of America to pay for it?

And how can it be claimed that this is vitally needed flood control in an area which has not flooded for well over half a century due to levees already built and successfully preventing flooding?

The Army Corps of Engineers agreed to support and fund reinforcing the existing levees to bring them up to post-Katrina standards. The levee reinforcement plan was rejected. If I remember right the estimated cost of upgrading the existing levees was something like $12 million. Which is a little less than the current estimated cost of Fort Worth's embarrassing Boondoggle at over $1 billion.

Instead of reinforcing the existing levees an absurd alternative was conjured up which involved digging a diversion channel ditch, with a flooding Trinity River diverted into the diversion channel. For the channel to work three bridges had to be built, with just the bridges costing way more than it would have cost to simply reinforce the existing levees.

Another problem negating the sending of federal funding to Fort Worth is the fact that prior to approving such funding a project must present a feasibility study. Such a study has never been submitted. Likely because it would be difficult to make a coherent case as to why this project is feasible, or needed.

If the Trinity River Vision is such a good idea, so beneficial to Fort Worth, so vitally needed, then why has Fort Worth not opted to pay for this project itself, in the manner towns wearing their big city pants do? You know, make a case to the public which convinces the public to vote to support a bond issue to fund the supposedly vitally needed project.

After two decades of dawdling along, waiting for that federal handout, clearly this is not a vitally needed flood control project. Or a viable economic development scheme, despite this editorial's unsupported claim that "developers are champing at the bit to start building businesses, housing and other amenities that would create a vibrant district out of basically nothing".

Read the entire Star-Telegram editorial yourself and try hard not laugh....

As Washington spews $1.2 trillion for infrastructure, none for Panther Island. Why?

Washington is spending $1.2 trillion in a new infrastructure package. A reasonable person might wonder if a tiny fraction of that will finally fund one of Fort Worth’s longest-lived projects, the rerouting of the Trinity River to create Panther Island.

 After all, the entire effort to dig bypass channels could be funded with less than 0.05 percent of the massive bill that President Joe Biden signed into law Monday. 

The answer is no. The Tarrant Regional Water District project, in partnership with the county, city and other entities, remains unfunded.

And while we wait, we’re in danger of falling back into the old patterns that got the project crosswise with the feds in the first place: Focusing on economic development, housing and other baubles when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cares about flood control. 

The water district continues to chip away at preparations for the dirt to fly, including land acquisition and utility work.

Developers are champing at the bit to start building businesses, housing and other amenities that would create a vibrant district out of basically nothing.

 If we were engineers charged with flood control, we’d want to know how that kind of construction could possibly go forward when the need to tame the Trinity remains. 

More than two years ago, an outside review identified confusion and poor communication about the project’s mission. Some leaders, including Fort Worth City Manager David Cooke, have said the economic development vision took too much prominence over a better flood-control option than the current Trinity levees. 

The Trinity River Vision Authority, which oversees the project on behalf of the water district and its partners, hired a long-time Army Corps expert to guide dealings with the agency and stress the seriousness of the flood-control mission. 

Here we go again. Whatever the hold-up in Washington is, no one can get past it — even in an era of prodigious spending.

Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who has led the charge for the program, told the Star-Telegram in July that enough money would soon be granted to begin channel construction. “I think it will be funded for everything they can spend in the next cycle,” she said. We asked her office for an update Thursday, but our questions went unanswered. 

Granger has said that during the Trump administration, the impediment to funding was Mick Mulvaney, who ran the White House budget office and eventually also served as President Donald Trump’s chief of staff. With the change of administrations, Mulvaney is obviously no longer an issue.

 A water district spokesman noted that the Army Corps is scheduled to release its annual project list early next year. If the project isn’t funded to the point Granger identified, it’s fair to question whether any progress can be made in the Biden administration, either. That would mean three more years of limbo. 

Water district officials have stressed that projects backed by the Corps and authorized by Congress are always finished, even if it takes years and the process appears messy. But at some point, the Washington spending spree will end, and Panther Island backers may regret missing an opportunity. 

Every time we’re told the money is juuuuuust around the corner, it’s not. In 2019, Mayor Betsy Price and Rep. Roger Williams went to the White House and emerged confident that as much as $250 million was on the way. Instead, the Corps offered a small amount for a feasibility study, which the river authority rejected.

Granger is the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, which authorizes federal spending. If Republicans win control of the House next year, which seems more than likely, she’ll be in line to chair the panel. Surely, in a government that spends trillions at a time, such a powerful official could secure a relatively small amount for a justified, approved flood control project. 

Until then, one of the many curiosities of the Panther Island saga is how it didn’t happen during a bonanza of federal infrastructure spending — and what that says about indifference in the federal government to whether Panther Island is ever truly an island.

Is Fort Worth's Imaginary Panther Island One Of The World's 12 Most Expensive Man Made Islands?

This morning a video popped up on my version of YouTube with the title Worlds 12 Most Expensive Man Made Islands.

Naturally seeing that title made me curious as to where Fort Worth's imaginary island, called Panther Island, ranked on this listing of the world's 12 most expensive man made islands.

If I am remembering correctly the current price tag for Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision is over a billion bucks. I do not remember seeing a price tag estimate of the imaginary island part of the Boondoggle. 

The price tag for the three simple little bridges being built in slow motion, with the eventual goal of connecting Fort Worth's mainland to that imaginary island, is around $50 million if I am remembering remotely correctly.

I do not think I have ever read an estimate of the cost of the cement lined ditch which will go under the three bridges, then filled with Trinity River water to make the imaginary island.

I also do not remember reading an estimate of how much it is expected to cost to clean up the toxins that are in the ground on the imaginary island, which was an industrial wasteland before it became an imaginary island.

I have not watched the entire video to see what place Fort Worth's imaginary man made island is ranked, but the first island on the list had a price tag of only $32 million, which makes on think that maybe Fort Worth's imaginary island may be the world's most expensive.

Watch the entire video with me below and we will find out where Fort Worth's Panther Island ranks among the world's most expensive man made islands...

Imagine Sailing Your Yacht To Fort Worth's Imaginary Panther Island

Saw that which you see above last night via the "You Know You're From Anacortes When..." Facebook page. 

The caption above the photo said, "Somebody has more money than we do. Largest yacht we've ever seen around here. There are 2 people on the flybridge, looking at them gives some perspective to the size of this beauty."

"Around here" is Anacortes, a town with a couple marinas, a ferry terminal and Spencer Jack's Fidalgo Drive-In.

I can not tell if the boat is moving through Guemes Channel, heading west to the San Juan Islands, or heading west towards the San Juan Islands via Burrows Channel. If it is Burrows Channel that would make the land in the background Burrows Island. If it is Guemes Channel that would make the land Guemes Island.

I do not remember there being little islands, as seen above, in Guemes Channel, so I'm going with this being Burrows Channel. Let me check the map app on this computer to see if I can clear up this serious issue...

Well, the map show little islands by both of the bigger islands. But, the little islands near Guemes Island would not have homes looking out at them, as shown in the photo at the top. But, Burrows Island would have homes looking out at it. There is a big marina called Skyline Marina, on the mainland across from Burrows Island, with a lot of houses built on the slopes above Burrows Bay, with that area known as Skyline.

When I see something like the photo at the top, or this map, showing islands, my inclination is to comment for the umpteenth time that it is so bizarre that the landlocked Texas town called Fort Worth, for most of this century, has been slowly trying to build a ridiculous mess originally called Trinity Uptown, then Trinity River Vision, eventually morphing into the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

A myopic vision which has slowly seen three little freeway overpass type bridges being built over dry land to one day connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, if a cement lined ditch is ever successfully dug, with the Trinity River diverted into the ditch, making the imaginary island called, already, Panther Island, where there is no island, and never will be any sane person's idea of what an island is.

Part of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision is to see what they are calling a Town Lake. The size has varied over the years of Boondoggling along, ranging from as small as 12 acres to as big as 33 acres.

Part of the vision is to see a houseboat district on the lake. 

One day there may be a lake, and maybe there will be houseboats floating on the little lake, but I think I can say for absolute certainty there will never be a big yacht sailing to the imaginary Panther Island...

Kay Granger Says Fort Worth's Boondoggle Will Get Buckets Of Federal Funding In 2022

Yesterday Fort Worth had a celebratory ceremony to celebrate the opening to traffic of the bridge you see in the photo above. Local propagandists have long propagandized that this bridge and its two siblings were going to be iconic signature bridges.

No. I am not making that up.

Construction of these three simple little bridges began way back in 2014. Two of the three are now, in 2021, completed.  Sort of.

This Sunday morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram had an article about that which has become America's Biggest & Most Embarrassing Boondoggle. This Fort Worth’s Panther Island will get federal funding in 2022, US Rep. Kay Granger says article contains some of the usual propaganda gems.

Along with failing to make mention of one big piece of reality. With that reality being that federal funding has not been forthcoming for Fort Worth's poorly planned, ineptly implemented public works project because of the requirement that a feasibility study is required before federal funding can be considered.

We blogged about the feasibility study problem just a couple months ago in Fort Worth Opens One Of Its Bridges To Nowhere Over Dry Land.

Before that we blogged about the feasibility study problem in August of 2020 in Panther Island Board Wants No Feasibility Study Of Fort Worth's Embarrassing Boondoggle.

And even way further back in March of 2010 in CONFLUENCE: A River & A Creek Runs Through Tarrant County Losing Dollars & Lives reference is made to the feasibility study issue way back in February of 2001, in the following paragraph from that blog post...

A feasibility study for the watershed had been initiated by the US Army Corps of Engineers in February 2001. In a letter to Congresswoman Kay Granger in November 2009, Col. Richard Muraski of the Corps stated that, "Due to a variety of issues, including a lack of consistent funding, higher priority work and technical shortcomings, completion of the study has taken longer than normal." He went on to state that the Corp recognized the "history of destructive flooding" in the area and that approximately $100,000 would be provided to "continue the studies of the Big Fossil Creek watershed."

The flood prone watershed referred to in the above paragraph is not the area focused on by the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, where there has been no flooding for well over half a century. Kay Granger has shown ZERO real concern for the area of her congressional district which has actually had, and continues to have, deadly destructive flooding.

The first three paragraphs of this latest Star-Telegram article about the Boondoggle...

The Panther Island project will see enough federal money in the 2022 funding cycle to begin digging the channel under the already-built bridges, U.S. Rep. Kay Granger said Saturday.

Granger, R-Fort Worth, said it’s not clear how much funding will come through for the project, but she’s confident it will be enough to begin cutting the 1.5-mile channel.

“It comes in different buckets, so there may be some in this one and then some in the next one,” Granger said. “I think it will be funded for everything they can spend in the next cycle.”

______________

Enough funding to begin digging in 2022? And the funding will come in different buckets? Like has already been said, there is to be no federal funding without a feasibility study. Or has that requirement been dropped?

Granger made these funding comments at yesterday's ribbon cutting grand opening of the North Main Street bridge.

And then we have the following two paragraphs...

But for now, all three bridges span dry land. Officials, including Granger, have long said that it was cheaper and easier to build the bridges first and then cut the channel that will connect the ends of a U-shaped bend in the Trinity River. The area known as Panther Island is not actually an island until water begins flowing through the channel.

“We didn’t have to do the water this way, but it was the smart way, it could be done faster and cheaper,” Granger said.

__________________

The smart way? We didn't have to do the water this way? Officials, including Granger, have long said it was cheaper and easier to build the bridges first and then cut the channel?

How many times has it been repeated that there was no logical option other than to build the bridges over dry land. It would have been idiotic to dig a ditch first, fill it with water, and then build the bridges. Without the bridges that ditch would be a serious obstacle to traffic.

Why do these supposed "officials" repeat this nonsense over  and over again?

Easier to build the bridges first? It has taken over 7 years to easily build these bridges.

Way longer than it took to build the Golden Gate bridge.

To illustrate how idiotic this cheaper and easier to build the bridges over dry land nonsense is, it would be like way back in the 1930s there was no water in San Francisco Bay. And the city decided to build a suspension bridge over dry land to connect to Marin County, and then fill the land under the bridge with water to create a bay. With the local officials repeating over and over and over again that it was cheaper and easier to build the bridge over dry land, as if there was any other logical option.

As has also been said over and over again, if the reality of this Fort Worth project was is as touted, that is, as a vitally needed flood control economic development scheme, why has this project limped along for most of this century?

Waiting for the rest of America to pay for it.

When Fort Worth voters have not voted to support this project by approving any sort of funding bond issue. Does Kay Granger actually believe that when she tries to finagle federal funding for her son's Boondoggle that other Representatives won't raise objections to funding the Fort Worth Boondoggle?

All you have to do is look at that photo of the newly opened bridge to see a visual metaphor for the quality of the Trinity River Vision. If any of the rest of the vision becomes anything someone can see do you think the quality will be of the same level as these three imaginary iconic signature bridges? 

Or worse...

Star-Telegram Wonders How Long Until Panther Island Becomes An Island

 

This morning a new article showed up in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about America's Biggest Boondoggle. By the end of this long article we learn the article was written by a new reporter, recently moved to Fort Worth, Emily Brindley, who the Star-Telegram is characterizing as an "investigative reporter".

This should be interesting. The Star-Telegram has not had one of those before, regarding anything to do with the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, which has become, after limping along for years, America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The article is titled As another bridge opens, how long until Fort Worth’s Panther Island becomes an island?

Just the article's title raises red flags. Such as, even the article's title admits that that which has been called an island, is not an island. 

Let's go through this article and comment as we go along. The first paragraph...

Late this weekend, Fort Worth officials plan to open the new North Main Street bridge that leads to the eventual Panther Island — marking another step forward in a project that has been more than a decade in the making and is still years from completion.

First off, this project has been limping along this entire century. Just the building of the three simple little bridges is taking almost a decade. Is it not even remotely concerning that a project which originally was touted as being a vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme is still years from completion?

Clearly, not vitally needed.

The second paragraph...

But local officials say the many moving pieces of the project are beginning to align. With a new presidential administration, an impending federal infrastructure bill and the return of appropriations earmarks, officials say that federal funding could soon flow into the project and kick off the next big phase of construction.

Have we not heard this moving parts beginning to align propaganda before? There is actual vitally needed infrastructure work in America, including much work needed in Fort Worth, such as addressing actual, real, flooding issues in Fort Worth. Why would, or should the rest of America help pay for Fort Worth's inept Boondoggle after it has been so badly mismanaged for so many years?

Why should, or would, federal money flood into Fort Worth for this project when the voters of Fort Worth have never voted to approve this public works project? Let alone be asked to support a bond issue to pay for it, like towns wearing their Big City pants do.

The next two paragraphs are a doozy, followed by one of the photos from the Star-Telegram article illustrating the imaginary beautiful bridges...

Tarrant County administrator G.K. Maenius pointed to the bridges as evidence that “we’re finally seeing some results” — and he said he’s pleased with the aesthetics of those results, too.

“I don’t know if anyone realized just how beautiful those bridges are going to be,” he said. “I’m not a bridge guy, but even to me, they look pretty darn good.”

Yeah, that is one super beautiful bridge. And look at those signature V-Piers, which J.D. Granger insisted on, rather than the actual cool looking design of the West 7th Street Bridge over the Trinity River. Clearly this guy who admits he is not a bridge guy, has not seen any of the world's actual impressive signature type bridges. Maybe heading west and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge might be too much bother for education purposes, but this Tarrant County administrator could simply drive a short distance east, to Dallas, and see the two actual signature bridges over the Trinity River, which actually do look pretty darn good.

You reading this in non-Fort Worth America, you good with your tax dollars helping Fort Worth build this?  Moving on...

The creation of an island necessitates the digging of a new channel north of downtown Fort Worth, which would connect the Clear and West forks of the Trinity River and then connect the ends of a U-shaped bend in the Trinity River. The new channel would effectively create two islands, together called Panther Island.

This is the first I have read there will be two imaginary islands. Both called Panther Island. If there are two, shouldn't they be known as the Panther Islands? Like in my old home zone in Washington, where the dozen of islands in the San Juan Strait are known as the San Juan Islands. But those islands in Washington are real islands, not cut off from the mainland by a cement lined ditch.

Moving on...

And for access over the eventual channel, the Texas Department of Construction in 2014 began building the three bridges, which currently span dry land. At the time, officials said the bridges would be completed by 2018.

Texas Department of Construction? I have not heard of this Department before. Maybe the Star-Telegram's new investigative reporter can do some actual investigating to find out why it has taken so long to build three simple little bridges over dry land? With construction to be completed three years ago.

Moving on a couple paragraphs...

Officially, the $1.17 billion project is broken into two pieces: the flood control portion, which is known as the Central City project and primarily involves digging the 1.5-mile channel, and the economic development portion, which is known as the Panther Island project and primarily involves the development of the industrial land in the area.

Officially? When did this breaking the project into pieces thing officially happen? When America's Biggest Boondoggle began around the start of this century it was called Trinity Uptown. A few years later this became the Trinity River Vision. I saw Central City on signage in Gateway Park, years ago, far east from the area which does not need new flood control, because it has not flooded since well over a half century ago, due to flood prevention measures already in place. When did the economic development part of this scheme become known as the Panther Island Project? The Boondoggle has been sold as a flood control/economic development scheme from the start. Slapping the Panther Island label on this that and the other thing came around about the time J.D. Granger and the Trinity River Vision began hosting Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River, labeling this as happening at Panther Island Pavilion. Where there is no island or pavilion, by any sane person's definition of either island or pavilion.

Skipping ahead a few exhausting paragraphs to the following doozy...

Officials have long said that it was cheaper and easier to build the bridges over dry land, and that the federal government would pay for the channel construction because it’s a flood control project.

Uh, if it was easier to build these three simple little bridges over dry land, why is the project years behind being completed? And, as has been pointed out many many times, there was no option other than to build the bridges over dry land. How could there be any other option? I mean, this entire project is rife with wanton stupidity, but it is hard to believe the stupidity could be so dumb as to dig a ditch, line it with cement, fill it with water. And then build bridges over it.

There has never been any other option than to build these bridges over dry land. How many times must this be repeated before the Star-Telegram ceases repeating this "cheaper and easier" nonsense?

The next paragraphs repeat the propaganda about securing federal funds, Kay Granger's failed role in doing so, the Trump administration refusing to help because the project has never done a comprehensive cost-benefit study and thus is not policy compliant, which then leads to hoping "the Biden administration will look more favorably on the Fort Worth project."

This article makes no mention of the fact Kay Granger's unqualified son, J.D., was hired as the Trinity River Vision's Executive Director, at a salary which has now gone over $200K, so as to motivate J.D.'s mother to secure those federal funds to secure J.D. a good paying job.

Why would the Biden administration look favorably at the Fort Worth project with all its baggage? There still has been no cost benefit study. The project is mired in mismanagement and project delays. The project wastes money on flood control where there has been no flooding for over half a century. Why would the Biden administration waste federal money on this Fort Worth boondoggle while the town ignores actual real flooding issues in other parts of the town?

Moving on deeper into this article...

Mark Mazzanti, a consultant on the flood control portion of the project and a 35-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers, said the federal government’s finite funding allocation means difficult decisions about which projects to fund. But he also said that the Panther Island/Central City project has “a number of strengths,” including support from locals, from Congress and from the Corps itself.

A number of strengths? If the locals support this boondoggle why have they never been allowed to vote on it? Like voting yes on a bond issue to pay for it. The amount of money we are talking about here is not that big for most big cities and their public works projects. What makes Fort Worth different? If this is such a good idea, such a brilliant scheme, such a well thought out and important project, why would those who want to make this happen not go to the voters and ask for their help by passing a bond issue to pay for the thing?

And then this...

Federal funding would mean that workers could begin on the new channel — first with final planning and then actual digging and construction.

Yes, federal funds would mean the planning for the ditch could be finalized with actual digging beginning. The same could have happened if years ago voters voted to support a bond issue to finance this vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which apparently really is not even remotely vitally needed, due to the backwards way Fort Worth has gone about actualizing the ill begotten project.

And then the following two paragraphs...

Even after federal funding comes through, it would likely be another eight to 10 years until the channel was actually completed, according to Buhman, the soon-to-be general manager of the water district.

That means that the channel would be finished — and Panther Island would actually become a full island — by 2030 at the earliest.

So, eight to 10 years after these three bridges are finally completely built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, the channel, actually ditch, will actually be completed. Yeah, this sounds like a really well thought out project that the federal government should jump right on and help to the max. Oh my, Panther Island might actually be a full imaginary island by 2030, after calling it Panther Island for two decades.

We are almost at the end of this article, two more paragraphs...

In the meantime, Buhman said, officials are focused on getting the land as ready as it can be for the channel. The water district is working on environmental cleanup of the Panther Island properties, he said, while the city moves and sets up utilities.

“We are shovel-ready for that channel and we’re still doing that prep work but I would say it is well on its way,” Buhman said. “And we are at the place that we are ready for that federal investment and for that construction.”

Really? What is the manifestation of those officials getting the land ready for the channel? Are they clearing the land of weeds and debris? What? How is the water district working on the environmental cleanup? Many have long thought that if this ever gets to the point where a lot of dirt is moving it will uncover a contamination level requiring an EPA Superfund cleanup. Shovel-ready and doing prep work? Again, what prep work does one do preparing to dig a ditch? It's well underway? As in how? Ready for that federal investment which likely will never come?

So, one can not help but wonder, if this new Star-Telegram 'investigative journalist" is the real thing.

Will she be doing some investigating to let us know, after all these years, why it has taken so long to build three simple little bridges? Will she look into what it is that J.D. Granger actually does to warrant being paid so much money? How about looking into the real reason J.D. Granger was hired?