Is Fort Worth The Vancouver Of The South Yet?

Saw this Is this the future of Seattle transit? A look at Vancouver, B.C. — a city that figured it out years ago article in yesterday's Seattle Times and thought, for more reasons than one, this is the type article I would never expect to be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

First off, the article is well written, detailed, full of facts, maps, photo documentation and intelligent analysis comparing public transit development in Vancouver and Seattle.

Oh, and the article is totally honest and reality fact based, with no embarrassing chamber of commerce type Fort Worth delusional puffery.

Both Vancouver and Seattle have a transit problem for similar reasons. Limited land due to the towns being hemmed in by mountains and water. And being fast growing boomtowns.

Seattle made a big goof way back in 1969 when a rail transit proposal failed with the voters, delaying for decades light rail coming to Western Washington.

Meanwhile Vancouver opened its first rail transit line, called Skytrain, by the time of their world's fair, Expo 86. Over the decades since, the Skytrain has greatly expanded.

By the 1990s Seattle voters knew something had to be done, and so voters began approving transit measures, one after another, with the latest passed a $54 billion bond approved in the November 2016 vote.

Seattle is now playing catch up with Vancouver, public transit-wise.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier in this century a bizarre public works project was foisted on the public, without a vote, called the Trinity River Vision, which, in its original propaganda, was supposedly gonna turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

I am not making that up.

Landlocked, saltwater-free, mountain-less Fort Worth was gonna be the Vancouver of the South.

The pitifully pathetic effort eventually became America's Biggest Boondoggle.

In all the years of boondoggling, Fort Worth has not even managed to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island which was/is supposed to be part of the Vancouver of the South.

And now, this week, we have learned that that imaginary island is so contaminated with toxins it makes workers sick to work on it.

And something of concern to modern locations in North America, like public transit, is not even remotely on the Fort Worth radar screen, as the city builds more and more sprawl without adequate modern transportation infrastructure.

Another huge difference in this Seattle Times article as compared to anything one would read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is the number of comments, intelligent, thoughtful detailed comments. Not dozens of comments, hundreds of comments. The comment flood happens over and over again in Seattle Times articles.

A Star-Telegram article may generate a comment or two, sometimes, and often the comments are, well, embarrassing in their ignorance and wrongheadedness.

Methinks that until Fort Worth gets a real newspaper the town has no real hope of ever lifting itself up from being an American backwards backwater.

Seattle has more than one newspaper, in a town smaller than Fort Worth. I don't know how many newspapers Vancouver has...

When Will A New Light Rail Station Transform Fort Worth?

I saw what you see here yesterday in the online version of the Seattle Times and thought, well, that is sure something I would not be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about a similar thing in Fort Worth.

The UW referred to in the headline is the University of Washington. The UW's new light rail station is due south of Husky Stadium. The current end terminal of an extension of the Seattle Link line, via a three mile tunnel under Queen Anne Hill.

Soon voters in several Puget Sound counties will be voting on a $20 billion bond issue to extend the Link lines all the way from Everett to the north, to Tacoma to the south, and points east. The voters have a history of passing these type transportation proposals. Likely because they are seeing the benefit of having efficient mass public transit.

I have wondered before, and am wondering again, why is there no effort in the D/FW Metroplex to have a modern efficient mass public transit system? All one needs do is check out the Dallas DART light rail system to see a modern transit system in action.

Why is there no effort to extend DART to Arlington, to the Dallas Cowboy Stadium/Six Flags zone?

Building rail lines in this flat part of the planet would seem to be far less challenging and far less expensive than doing such in a location like Seattle and surrounding towns, what with there being a lot of topographic variation and large bodies of water.

Pretty much every weekday I see I-820 slowed to a crawl. One would think mass public transit would be more appealing than being stuck in a traffic jam day after day.

Sound Transit $15 Billion Project Not Happening In Tarrant County Where The Poor Have Cars

Continuing on with our popular series of things we read in west coast online newspapers that one would never read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that which you see here is from the Seattle Times.

An article titled Sound Transit planning heats up for light-rail expansion and public vote.

Can you imagine reading in the Star-Telegram a headline like "TRWD Planning for $1 Billion Trinity Uptown Vision Project & Public Vote"?

Read the Sound Transit planning heats up for light-rail expansion and public vote article. Make note of how detailed the article is. Make note that the article mentions project timelines. Make note that the article details the issues being faced by Sound Transit prior to putting the $15 Billion project to a public vote. Make note how big the project is, covering three counties, each of which is way bigger than Tarrant County.

In Tarrant County there is no comprehensive public transit covering the entire, small, heavily populated county. Only Fort Worth has any form of public transit, that being a fleet of little buses which run on limited routes and a train which travels to Dallas and back several times a day.

A few days ago Elsie Hotpepper sent me that which you see below, which succinctly sums up how the developed. progressive parts of America and the world view public transportation.

Meanwhile, in Tarrant County, apparently, or so I have been told, most of the locals think only poor people use public transit....

Not Thanking Fort Worth Voters For More Buses With More Options & Fewer Outhouses

File this in the folder containing things I see in other newspapers, such as the Seattle Times, which I would never see in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

That being the advertisement you see here which was on the Seattle Times online front page, with the City of Seattle thanking Seattle voters for voting for more buses with more options.

At my current location in Texas I have been appalled more than once by having a local tell me only poor people ride buses.

I have long wondered how such a bone-headed idea takes root.

I also wonder what one of those locals thinks if they travel to a modern American city with modern public transit, like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle or Dallas.

Do they think all those people using public transit are poor?

Most every county in my old home state has public transit. The current county I live in, Tarrant, in Texas, has only one town with a semi-developed  public transit system. That would be Fort Worth.

Fort Worth's buses are a bit, well, minimalist. Luxury liners, they ain't. But, why should poor people expect a luxury ride on public transit?

Skagit County, from whence I came, has public transit called Skagit Transit. Skagit County covers 1,920 square miles, with a population of 118,837.

King County, where Seattle is, has public transit called Sound Transit. King County covers 2,307 square miles, with a population of 2,079,967.

Tarrant County has no public transit, other than Fort Worth's T. Tarrant County covers only 897 square miles, with a population of 1,809,034.

How can a Texas county, a fraction the size of Skagit and King County, and much more densely populated, not have public transit covering the entire county?

What does a local think if they fly in to, well, Sea-Tac, to find they can get on Link light rail which will take them to downtown Seattle for less than it costs for a day pass on a Fort Worth bus? What does that same local think when they ride that Link train into downtown Seattle to find themselves entering a tunnel under the city, with five big underground transit stations? Does this clue the local as to how far behind, transportation-wise, their hometown is?

If the Fort Worth buses are for poor people, why does it cost more to ride them, significantly more, than King or Skagit County public transit?

Both King and Skagit transit offer discounts for various categories. Greatly reduced youth, over 65, disabled, and low income fares. In other words an actual poor person in King or Skagit County can get a bus ticket at about half price, or less.

A month pass on Skagit Transit is $25.00. $12.50 at reduced fare. Similar rates for King County transit.

A month pass on a Fort Worth bus costs $60.00. There are reduced fares available for students, senior citizens and the disabled. I found no mention of reduced fares for poor people. A reduced fare Fort Worth bus pass costs $5 more than a Skagit Transit full fare month pass. In other words, the Fort Worth reduced fare is $30.00. To get the reduced fare you have to jump through some Fort Worth hoops, at various locations, proving you deserve to pay less. Then you pay $2.00 to get yourself a Reduced Fare Photo Identification Card.

Skagit Transit has all sorts of special deals, like a greatly reduced rate for students at Skagit Valley College, with a bus pass for an entire quarter for only $15. No mention was made of needing a Reduced Fare Photo Identification Card. I suspect ones Student I.D. likely suffices in a land where common sense prevails.

The last time I rode Fort Worth's buses, about three years ago, I thought the fare for a day pass was still $3.00. It had been raised to $3.50. I had three dollar bills with me, along with larger bills. Fort Worth drivers can not make change. The driver let me get on board and then when we got to a strip mall he sent me inside a donut shop to get change.

How bizarre.

Now read how the Skagit Transit system handles this same issue....

While drivers cannot make change, our fare boxes issue a change card for the difference between what you owe and what you deposit in the fare box. For example, if you pay a $1.00 fare with a $5 bill, the fare box will issue a Skagit Transit Change Card for $4.00. The next time you ride Skagit Transit, dunk the card in the slot. The fare box will deduct $1.00 each time you use it, print the dollar value on your card and return it to you.

How can Skagit County, small of population, have a much more sophisticated system, in this instance, than big ol' Fort Worth?

How can Fort Worth's public transit planners not realize they are charging far more, fare-wise, than areas of America with far more successful public transit?

I realize I may be being a bit unfair, comparing Fort Worth and Tarrant County to Seattle and King and Skagit County.

Skagit and King County and Seattle, are far more prosperous than Tarrant County and Fort Worth.

For example.

The majority of streets in towns in Skagit and King County have sidewalks. Wide sidewalks. On both sides of the street.

Parks in Skagit and King County have modern  restroom facilities. With running water.

So, I realize in a town where outhouses are the norm in city parks. And people are okay with that. Where most streets have no sidewalks. And people are okay with that.

That those same people are apparently okay with having what amounts to being an outhouse level of public transit.

I suppose the majority local attitude is, just like with public transit, only poor people use parks or sidewalks, hence the ubiquitous outhouses and narrow sidewalks, in the few places those amenities exist.

Watch the below video I made back in the summer of 2008 and you will see what must be a lot of poor people using Seattle's modern public transit. Note all the buses. And all the poor people onboard.

Imagine a similar scene in Fort Worth. I know, I can't either....

Many Ohio & Oregon Fans Frustrated By Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Lack Of Public Transportation

This morning I am being a bit discombobulated, with that condition having me bouncing from one thing to the next, subject-wise, in my discombobulated thinking.

So, let's start with this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram's article titled Long taxi lines leave many fans frustrated at AT&T Stadium.

First off, why is the Star-Telegram letting me  read an article this morning without the usual blocking and insistence I become an online subscriber?

Second off, why do various media entities go along with the naming of stadiums? It's Cowboy Stadium. Why call it something else just because some corporate entity paid to have their name slobbered on the building. And slobbered is an understatement. Have you seen the garish AT&T logo on Cowboy Stadium. To my mind, that alone should be what they get for naming rights, with those naming rights not including everyone else, as in those who have not been paid to do so, going along with the "new" name.

I remember the first time I flew into Seattle after the Seahawks new stadium was built. The roof said something like "Seattle Seahawk Stadium". The next time I flew in the roof said something like "QWest Field". The last time I flew in to Seattle the Seahawk stadium roof said "CenturyLink Field."

What is a Qwest or a CenturyLink? I have never bothered to try and find out.

Back to the most recent event to take place at Cowboys Stadium, that being the National Championship College Football game which Ohio State won by soundly beating Oregon.

After the game mini-riot conditions erupted. I read somewhere that an Ohio State cheerleader was trampled in one of the post game melees.

This morning's Star-Telegram article about the transportation woes following the game brought to my mind something I have wondered about before, which I started wondering about after the Super Bowl debacle at Cowboys Stadium.

As in, what is causing those who book a national event decide staging that event at Cowboys Stadium is a good idea?  What with there being so many other venues in America which would seem to work much better.

Cowboys Stadium seems to work great for Texas-centric events, where the locals drive and park on the world's largest acreage of parking lots. But, when people fly in from other parts of the country, in the most recent case, from Ohio and Oregon, well, I am sure many of those people arrive thinking they are arriving in a modern American city with modern transportation, to be perplexed to find that is not the case.

Do those who book Cowboys Stadium for a national event realize there is no modern public transportation connecting the stadium area to the airport? Do those who book Cowboys Stadium for a national event not realize there is a very limited number of hotels in the area near the stadium? Do those who book Cowboys Stadium not realize that about half of the stadium is surrounded by urban blight?

Why is there not some local impetus to extend the Dallas DART train from Dallas to Arlington's Entertainment District? I would think such a line would be very popular. What if the new DART line which connects to the airport was extended to Arlington's Entertainment District? Would that not be a good idea?

As for those hapless souls from Ohio and Oregon who found themselves staying in one of downtown Fort Worth's hotels, was there public transit other than taxis to take those people east to Arlington? Did the Fort Worth T buses run a circuit back and forth between Arlington and downtown Fort Worth?

I suspect not. If not, why not?

What is the next national event scheduled for Cowboys Stadium? Methinks the transportation problems need to be addressed or there will soon come a day when  no national events are scheduled at Cowboys Stadium....

I Don't Think I Will Ever Get Maxed Out Riding Arlington's Public Transit To The Dallas Cowboy Stadium

Last week, the day before I drove to Arlington to watch the USA team get beat by Belgium in the Dallas Cowboy stadium I blog my lament about not being able to take any form of public transit to the Dallas Cowboy stadium.

That lament had someone calling him or herself Anonymous making a blog comment informing me that I could have used public transit to get within walking distance of the Dallas Cowboy stadium......

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Won't Be Pedaling The Cowtown Cycle Party To Arlington To Watch The USA Beat Belguim Today":

You could have gotten off of the Max bus at Collins and Andrews. It would have been a 10 minute walk to the stadium.

When I read the above suggestion from Anonymous I vaguely recollected reading about a new bus service in Arlington that was some sort of limited test type deal.

Googling brought me to the RIDE THE MAX website, a screencap of which is what you see above.

From the RIDE THE MAX website I learned that ".....for a roundtrip price of $5/day (or $80/month), Metro ArlingtonXpress buses will travel between the TRE CentrePort/DFW Airport Station and College Park Center at UT Arlington. From CentrePort/DFW Airport Station, riders access any DART bus or train or T bus to travel to Dallas or Fort Worth."

So, for me to take public transit to get myself to the Dallas Cowboy stadium I would need to figure out which Fort Worth T buses I needed to get on to get to the CentrePort DFW Airport Station where I would then get on a MAX bus which would then take me to the intersection of Collins and Andrews from whence I could take a brisk 10 minute HOT walk to the stadium.

Or, I could drive about two miles from my abode, to the Richland Hills Trinity Railway Express station and hop a train which would take me to CentrePort where I could get on a MAX bus to get to the point where I take a brisk 10 minute HOT walk to the stadium.

I am assuming that I would need to pay to ride the Fort Worth T bus or the TRE to CentrePort, adding to the $5 roundtrip MAX fare.

I don't think I burned $5 worth of gas driving to Arlington to watch the World Cup last week.

So, this method of getting oneself to the Dallas Cowboy stadium from my location in Fort Worth is what Anonymous thinks is functional public transit?

I have been in towns with functional public transit. I know what functional public transit is. You can use functional public transit to easily get yourself from one location to another. The town to the east of Fort Worth, called Dallas, has functional public transit in both bus and light rail form. Soon one will be able to take a DART train to D/FW Airport.

Vancouver, up north in this country called Canada, has a very cool public transit system called SkyTrain. You can get on SkyTrain south of Vancouver and have yourself a mighty fine ride into town, where you can hop on a seabus, included in your fare, and cross some saltwater to North Vancouver. And a SkyTrain line runs to the Vancouver airport.

Portland, in Oregon, has a light rail system which runs all over town, including the airport. If I remember right, and I am fairly certain I do, the Portland light rail is called the MAX.

Seattle, in Washington, has light rail known as the Link, which takes you from the downtown Seattle transit tunnel to the airport. Buses also travel through Seattle's downtown transit tunnel, with those buses taking you to locations all over Seattle, and beyond.

Unlike Arlington, one can easily take public transit in both rail and bus form directly to the sports facilities in downtown Seattle. You don't get dumped off a 10 minute walk from the Seahawk Stadium or the Mariner's Ballpark.

The video below, which I took in August of 2008, should give Anonymous an idea of what actual functional public transit looks like. First I walk across Westlake Center, which is Seattle's version of Fort Worth's Sundance Square Plaza, only bigger and surrounded by big stores, like Nordstrom. I then walk into Westlake Center, which is a vertical  mall and the south terminus of the Seattle Monorail. I then descend to the Westlake Center transit station. There you will see the transit tunnel which runs under Seattle. Near the end of the video I exit a bus and you will see a long line of buses, filled with fans heading to a Seattle Mariners game, with no 10 minute walk needed, just an escalator ride to the street level.....

The Befuddling Mystery Of Tarrant County & Texas Public Transit

A couple months ago Steve A commented on a blog post where I said something about riding a bus, or public transit, the specifics of which I don't remember, but I remember the comment was about Steve A being able to ride a public transit bus from his vacation spot of Ocean Shores, on the Washington Pacific Coast, to Olympia.

Ocean Shores is in Grays Harbor County. Olympia is in Thurston County, about 70 miles from Ocean Shores.

When Steve A told me he could take a public transit bus from Ocean Shores to Olympia I realized I could take public transit from my old home zone in the Skagit Valley, all the way to Ocean Shores, because of the Washington public transit system of Inter-county connectors.

This got me thinking about the extremely sad state of mass public transit in Texas.

One would think that the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex zone of around 6 million people would be all connected by mass transit, but one would be wrong to think that.

The Washington county I lived in, Skagit County is served by public transit, called Skagit Transit, known as SKAT. SKAT has a Skagit Transit website, is on Twitter and there is a Wikipedia article about SKAT.

Skagit County covers 1,731 square miles. Tarrant County covers 897 square miles. Skagit County's population is 118,109. Tarrant County's population is 1,849,815.

Skagit County is about twice as big as Tarrant County, with Tarrant County having a population about 15 times bigger than Skagit County.

So, how is it that Skagit County has public transit, while Tarrant County does not? When Fort Worth decided to have a public bus system called  The T, why was no effort made to make this a county-wide public transit system?

From the SKAT website, their mission statement...

Our goal is to provide high quality public transportation that meets the needs of the citizens of Skagit County at the least cost to the taxpayer and the user and in the process contribute to the county's economy and quality of life. To do this, we provide traditional Fixed Route bus transportation to most shopping, medical, employment, recreational, and governmental locations. Buses operate Monday through Sunday except on certain holidays.

What is it that stops Tarrant County from having a similar lofty goal?

Tarrant County can not plead being poor as its excuse. The per capita income in Tarrant County is $39,380. Skagit County's per capita income is $37,904. The cost of living is higher in Skagit County than it is in Tarrant County.

The Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metropolitan zone is served by mass public transit in various forms, including rail, bus and ferries. The Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metropolitan zone is not served by a cohesive mass public transit system.

The Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metropolitan zone covers 5,894 square miles with a population of 3,500,026. The Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metropolitan zone covers 8,991 square miles with a population of 6,526,548.

So, the Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metroplex is more densely populated than the Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metroplex, but does not have a public mass transit system serving the population.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made to bring mass public transit to D/FW International Airport.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made to bring mass public transit to Arlington's Entertainment District, that being the location of Six Flags Over Texas, Hurricane Harbor, the Ballpark in Arlington and the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

I have been told by more than one Texan that Texans don't ride buses because buses are for poor people.

I guess Washington has way more poor people than Texas does. Watch the video below and eventually you will see a lot of poor people on buses in the transit tunnel that runs under downtown Seattle.

Having Myself A Real Fine Time Riding Fort Worth Buses With All The Poor Homeless People

Fort Worth's Long Gone Light Rail Subway

Yesterday I was motivated to blog about Fort Worth's World City Status after reading an article in Fort Worth Weekly about the current state of public transit in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and the opinion verbalized that Fort Worth will not be a world class city until it has a mass transit system.

There were another couple of paragraphs in Fort Worth Weekly's A Tale of Two Rail Systems cover article that sort of bugged me.

I don't know if the couple of excerpts that bugged me reflected the point of view of the author, Dan McGraw, or if he was reflecting opinions he'd encountered whilst writing the article.

But, I do know I have encountered the same opinion being verbalized by locals. I won't name names.

The first excerpt that bugged me....

The T, on the other hand, has had no choice but to maintain a bus system whose main purpose is to provide basic transportation to poor folks without cars.

The main purpose of the bus system is to provide basic transportation to poor folks without cars?

The first time I rode a Fort Worth bus I found it a fun, amusement park like ride. I asked a local if she ever road the bus. She told me she thought only poor people rode the bus. I've been on Fort Worth buses at least 5 times. How does one tell it is poor people riding the bus?

I can't help but wonder what does a Fort Worth native think the first time they visit New York City and see all those people using public transit? They must think New York City has an awful lot of poor people.

What does a Fort Worth native think the first time they visit Seattle and find themselves in the transit tunnel under downtown Seattle, seeing so many buses and a light rail, with a lot of people on  board. They must think there are an awful lot of poor people in Seattle.

The valley I lived in in Washington, the Skagit Valley, has a pubic transit bus system, called SKAT. SKAT was free to ride when I lived in Washington. I believe a fare is charged now. A Fort Worth native visiting the Skagit Valley must think the valley has an awful lot of poor people who can't afford cars, when they see a public transit bus system exists.

The other excerpt that bugged me was...

The current bus route through that area has the highest ridership of any route in The T’s system, and Eastside residents have supported the plan in surveys. But part of the large projected ridership would be homeless folks, due to the number of homeless shelters and services on East Lancaster. The homeless qualify for free bus passes, and many use them frequently to go downtown, usually to the main library, where they hang out and use the computers. The big unspoken question here is whether commuters who work downtown will be willing to share their commute with that group.

How is it known that the homeless hop a bus to get to the downtown library? Would that not involve a long walk to get to the library? I don't think there is a bus stop at the library. Would it not make more sense for the homeless person to hop on board the 21 bus and go to the Eastside Regional Library? Which also has a lot of computers.

I have never been in the Eastside Regional Library and thought to myself, wow, look at all those homeless people.

I have never been on a Fort Worth bus and thought to myself, oh my, this is awful, I am on a bus with a bunch of poor, homeless people.

Who or what taught the Fort Worth locals that buses and public transit are for poor people? And the homeless?

In a highly evolved world-class city, like New York City, Dallas or Seattle, you can use mass public transit to get all over the town. When I am in Seattle I sometimes stay in the north end. I'll take a bus to downtown and then use the downtown transit tunnel to zip from one end of downtown to the other.

It would not make much sense for Fort Worth to have an underground transit center to facilitate zipping around downtown. Because downtown Fort Worth is rather tiny. There is not a lot to zip to. Or people needing to be zipped.

I have long been curious as to how many Fort Worth natives have even been to Dallas to check out how well the DART train has worked in that town. I assume not a lot of Fort Worth natives make the trek 30 miles east to Dallas. If they do they must think Dallas has an awful lot of poor people.

Few Fort Worth locals visiting Dallas may be why the Fort Worth Star-Telegram knew it could get away with tall tales told to the locals, making up propaganda about Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market being the first public market in Texas, and that it was modeled after public markets in Europe and Seattle's Pike Place Market. This propaganda was spewed when Dallas has the Dallas Farmers Market, which every one of my visitors from the Northwest has remarked reminded them of Pike Place Market.

Below you can walk with me through Seattle's Westlake Center, an actual town square, unlike Fort Worth's Sundance Square, and then into the Westlake Center vertical shopping mall, where you can go down a few levels and enter the Seattle transit tunnel, where you will see a lot of buses with a lot of poor people who don't own cars....

Pondering Fort Worth's Rail-Free Rise To World Class City Status With Litter, Eyesores & Dirt Paths

Northside Drive I-35 Exit To The Fort Worth Stockyards

In the picture you are looking at the northbound exit to Northside Drive from Interstate 35W. This is the  freeway exit that leads to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Please make note of the fact that this freeway exit is not landscaped and is littered. We will come back to this later.

The cover story in the most recent edition of Fort Worth Weekly is titled "A Tale of Two Rail Systems." With the subtitle being "Tarrant and Dallas took different public transit routes. Guess who is ahead?"

A Dallas attorney, Walt Humann, is extensively quoted in this story, because the story is about public transit in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and attorney Humann is credited with the founding of DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit).

In the article Walt Humann is quoted as saying...

“But if you are going to be a world-class city, you have to have a great mass- transit system, I think Fort Worth is at a point right now where that issue is gaining more importance. One way that big cities solve the transportation problem is to add different mass-transit options. That’s what world-class cities do. Fort Worth needs to start thinking of itself as a world-class city, because in many ways it already is.”

Can you guess the part of the above quote that had me perplexed? If you guessed it was the part that indicated that in many ways Fort Worth is already a world-class city, you guessed right.

I was baffled. I could not think of a single way in which Fort Worth is a world-class city. Is one of the ways the fact of having that extremely tacky looking Cowtown Wakeboard Park, that is part of the ongoing Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, which Boondoggle Leader, J.D. Granger, says is the World's Premiere Urban Wakeboard Park?

I thought to myself that I don't actually know what makes for a world-class city, so I turned to Google.

The Wikipedia article on this important subject says in part, "A world-class city is a city generally considered to be an important node in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade."

The Urban Dictionary article on this important subject says in part, "A world-class city is a major international destination. Most often it's a major, international political, cultural or commercial center. Includes cities of all sizes and not just the world's largest."

In the Wikipedia list of world-class cities the only town in Texas on the list is Austin. The list is broken down from Alpha towns at the top, like #1 New York City, to Beta towns, and then Gamma towns, of which Austin is one.

Apparently a world-class city comes to be one by being an important political, cultural or commercial center.

Well, Fort Worth does have a Cultural District. I don't know if any other world-class cities name the location of their town's museums as the town's "Cultural District."

Commercial center? Let's see. American Airlines is based in Fort Worth. And bankrupt.

Radio Shack is based in Fort Worth. But had to sell its new corporate headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, a corporate headquarters that was built by abusing eminent domain, taking acres of free parking and closing the world's shortest free subway, which was Fort Worth's only light rail.

Tarrant County College is now located in the defunct former Radio Shack headquarters, because of TCC's own building boondoggle in downtown Fort Worth that ran amok, cost-wise.

Pier One Imports is based in Fort Worth. Pier One Imports built a very nice new corporate headquarters, that Pier One Imports could not afford. So, Chesapeake Energy bought the Pier One Imports corporate headquarters for building space from which to run their shadow government of Fort Worth.

I know the locals take great pride in their collection of museums in the Cultural District. I had never heard of these museums until I moved to Texas. I recently bought the Lonely Planet travel guide to Texas. In the Lonely Planet Texas travel guide one section lists the Top 10 museums to see in Texas. The only one in Fort Worth, on the list, is the National Cowgirl Museum.

I don't think Fort Worth has any particular political influence on the nation or world that is of the world-class city sort. The town is run by an oligarchy, good ol' boy network type system of local government, that does not even allow its citizens to vote on public works projects, like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Fort Worth is the only city in America with a population over 500,000 without a department store in its downtown. There is also no grocery store in downtown Fort Worth. On the busiest shopping day of the year, that being the day after Thanksgiving, downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town.

I really don't think a town can be a world-class city with no downtown department stores or grocery stores.

I have never seen a big city with so many streets without sidewalks, as Fort Worth, with so many of its residents walking on dirt paths worn into the ground beside the streets. I really think world-class cities are likely big on having sidewalks.

Would a world-class city allow a park in its downtown, like Heritage Park, to become a closed, chain-link fence surrounded eyesore?

Fort Worth has more holes poked into its ground, by Natural Gas Drillers, than any other city in the world. Maybe this is what Mr. Humann means to be one of the ways Fort Worth is a world-class city.

Maybe someone could ask Dallas attorney, Walt Humann, in what ways he believes Fort Worth is a world-class city and help alleviate me of my bafflement.

Regarding being a world-class city, let's go back to that picture at the top of the freeway exit which leads to Fort Worth's top tourist attraction, the Fort Worth Stockyards.

A world-class city would landscape and keep litter free the exits to its top tourist attraction.

The two little towns in the valley I lived in in Washington, through which the I-5 freeway passes, landscape their freeway exits, those towns being Mount Vernon and Burlington, combined population around 40,000.

Fort Worth does not need to go all the way to Washington to see how grown up cities beautify their towns. Just go visit Grapevine. Or North Richland Hills. Both towns have done real good jobs of landscaping their main roads. And using native plants to do so.

Fort Worth's shabby freeway exits are a shameful thing.

For another example, for Fort Worth, look at what Arlington's done with the new bridges and freeway exits to the Six Flags-Ballpark in Arlington-Cowboys Stadium Entertainment District. It is quite impressive, the landscaping, the pedestrian crossings over the new bridges, the murals.

Maybe the City of Fort Worth should stop ticketing and fining Don Young for growing a native plant Xeriscaped yard, and instead enlist Mr. Young's help in designing some sensible, water-free landscaping for Fort Worth's eyesore freeway exits.

It just occurred to me. There is something called a Citizen's Arrest, where a citizen can arrest someone they see doing a bad thing. Is there such a thing as a Citizen's Citation? If the city can ticket and fine Don Young for growing native prairie grass, could Don Young serve Betsy Price with a citation for allowing the freeway exits to the Fort Worth Stockyards to be a weedy, littered mess?

I think a $500 fine would be apropos for Betsy, along with, maybe, 50 hours of community service. Picking up litter, perhaps.

I'm done now. For now.

Jogging in Tacoma to Fight the Cold

Have I mentioned it's cold here in Tacoma? Well, this morning I took my pair of poodles on a walk. That turned into a run. From that I learned apparently I am in running shape. Me and the poodles ran a long long ways this morning. I guess it has something to do with being at sea level. Ultra-fresh air and all those hikes I do back in Fort Worth in extreme temperatures.

This jogging thing also caused it to occur to me why people here are so thin as opposed to so noticeably fatter in Texas. Here your poor body burns a lot of calories just to stay warm. And because it's so cold it's more inviting to go outside and get physical than in hot Texas. And there are very few donut stands here. And frying food is frowned upon. For the most part. The only vegetable that gets fried here is a potato.

So, this afternoon I decided to see if going jogging without the poodles could possibly warm me up. I took my camera along because I wanted to take a photo of the above house with the "Impeach Bush" and "No Iraq War" signs. A few of the neighbors of this house had similar signs. And flew the flag. Some Texans may think the west coast is full of left-wing pinko tree hugging hippie sorts. It is true that Tacoma and the west side of the mountains, in Washington, is a very liberal zone. A lot of free-spirited, well-educated, free-thinkers up here. Lesser so in Texas.

Above we see another anti-Bush sign. In 2004 I was up here to do a job for the former deputy mayor. The day he met me he took me back, in his Prius, to my apartment. When we got there he pulled in behind a pick-up. With Texas plates. He half-jokingly, I think, said "I need to get on the phone to the sheriff to have this guy run out of town." By the time he fired me I was to realize he did not have a very highly evolved sense of humor. This run the guy out of town remark was an early example of that.


See? This is an example of how very patriotic, yet rebellious, people are here. And how well everyone landscapes their yards.


One of the things I like about Tacoma, and Washington in general, is you don't have to go to a park for a park-like experience. Like these photos show, I left my sister's house to go on a jog. The landscaping surrounding the sidewalks makes it very pleasant, visually, and all the flowers smell good. Texans, take note. You could do this too if you got off your lazy big butts once in awhile. Okay, that was uncalled for. But it was what I was thinking and I'm in too big a hurry right now to self-censor. I've got a steak on the grill.


Above we are looking at a brick-covered street, out towards Commencement Bay. Commencement Bay is part of Puget Sound. Puget Sound is part of the Pacific Ocean. Tacoma has all sorts of water features, courtesy of Mother Nature. Fort Worth may some day have a small water feature, courtesy eminent domain abuse, if their Trinity River Vision ever gets clear and results in a little lake and some canals. Regarding the above brick-covered street. There are a lot of these in Washington. Fort Worth has a brick-covered street that's sort of bumpy, called Camp Bowie Boulevard. Long ago I asked a Fort Worth native why in the world they'd keep that bumpy brick road. She was a former reporter for the Star-Telegram and she actually told me that this brick road was a unique one of a kind thing. I was appalled. I'd already seen other parts of Texas with brick roads. This was the first time I realized there are a lot of Texans who do not see much of the rest of the world. Or their own state.


I jogged a couple miles. Back at my sister's I took a picture of her house. That's the car I'm driving around. It has a lot of electronic things in it that confuse me. If the photo were big enough you'd see a pair of happy poodles staring out the windows on the right. They are very very vigilant.

Above is a Tacoma Transit bus going by my sister's house. My sister can easily take a bus from her house to the Sound Transit train terminal a few blocks away, then ride that free train to the main transit hub and get on a bus to ride to Olympia, where she is a lawyer righting wrongs. You could try and do the same thing in Fort Worth. But it would be an exhausting ordeal. And not easy. I'm referring to the righting wrongs thing, not the taking a bus thing...