Fort Worth Does Not Need A Bus Tunnel Under Its Downtown To Take You To Its Professional Sports Stadiums

This week's Fort Worth Weekly had an interesting article about the demise of the Fort Worth Streetcar. The article attempts to figure out what went wrong. And who went wrong.

From my point of view the article did not quite get to the real reason behind why many thought the Streetcar plan was yet one more Fort Worth Boondoggle in the making. And just did not make sense.

From the article this one paragraph bugged me...

"Fort Worth’s historical attitude of giving little value to mass transit was probably a factor in the decision as well. Funding for the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T) has also been on the low side compared to other cities, and the accepted view has always been that it’s mostly poor people who ride the bus — another reason the system gets little respect. Thus, better mass transit options have always been considered pretty much off the political radar screen."

Mostly poor people ride the bus? Why is that? And why is that the Fort Worth attitude towards bus riding? I've actually had someone tell me this in person when I opined that I thought riding the Fort Worth buses was fun, due to their theme park like wild ride aspect.

Now, the only other big city bus system that I have used is Seattle's. No one in Seattle would opine that only poor people use the bus.

In the picture above you are looking at the Pioneer Square station in the Seattle bus tunnel. Notice how many buses there are. This was on August 7, 2008. A Thursday, about 3 in the afternoon.

Seattle has a population a little over a half million. Fort Worth has a population over 700,000. Yet Seattle's downtown is way larger than Fort Worth's. There are several vertical malls, several department stores, grocery stores, theaters, two sports stadiums, museums, a symphony hall, Pike Place Market, all sorts of downtown attractions. And a lot of people from one end of downtown to the other, each and every day of the year.

Serving downtown Seattle, public transportation-wise, are surface buses, bus tunnel buses, light rail that runs through the bus tunnel, the SLUT streetcar and the Monorail. You can be at the Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) hop on the Monorail to Westlake Center (an actual downtown square, unlike Fort Worth's Sundance Square, which is parking lots), take the escalator from the Monorail level to the bus tunnel level and hop on a bus, or train, to take you to the International District's sports stadiums, or stop at any of the other stations, along the way.

All this transit, except for the Monorail and the SLUT streetcar is free. You start paying once you exit downtown.

Is anyone familiar with Fort Worth getting the point I am making here?

I've only touched upon a few of the attractions in downtown Seattle that make public transportation a viable and necessary option. Another reason public transit in downtown Seattle is necessary and viable is because a lot of people live downtown.

Fort Worth's streetcar plan, from what I understood, was that the hope was, build it and the attractions, and people will come. That has worked in some other locales. Like Dallas, Vancouver, Portland and others. But, in Fort Worth, methinks the foundation is way too weak for that sort of dynamic to occur.

I don't believe the "T" currently has bus routes circulating through downtown Fort Worth. Unless you count Molly the Trolley. That fact is rather telling, streetcar need-wise.

What Fort Worth actually needs to do is figure out why there are no vertical malls downtown, no grocery stores, no department stores.

Figure out why Heritage Park is a boarded up eyesore.

Seattle has a park similar to Heritage Park. It also had some problems. I believe a murder was committed in Seattle's Freeway Park. Freeway Park has water features, like Heritage Park did. When Seattle's Freeway Park became a problem Seattle did not put cyclone fence around it and turn off the water features. Seattle fixed the problem.

To my eyes, Fort Worth tends not to actually address its problems. Instead it pretends the problems aren't problems. How long is that embarrassing courthouse annex going to stand? It's been years now since I read it was coming down, with the historic courthouse to be restored to its original glory.

To sum up, in my opinion, Fort Worth needs to figure out why its downtown does not have attractions that attract crowds of people day after day. And necessities (like grocery stores) that would make it a place people want to live. Fort Worth needs to figure out why, on the busiest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town.

The year that downtown Fort Worth is not a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year is the year Fort Worth is actually ready to worry about building transit systems like streetcars.

Watch the video below I made of my Seattle visit of August 7, 2008. I was at Art in the Park in Pioneer Square (yet one more of Seattle's actual town squares). I walked to Westlake Center, then went into the bus tunnel. In the video you'll see one of Seattle's buses, on the surface, going by Westlake Center. In the bus tunnel you will see big, articulated buses, a lot of them, with a lot of people on board. You will notice that the bus I am on is standing room only. Picture the same scene in Fort Worth. You can't? Can you?

After the bus tunnel video I'll stick in one I made from the same day. Of Pike Place Market. On a summer Thursday afternoon. Make note of how big Pike Place is. In the video you see only a small fraction of the actual scope of the market. And note how many people are milling about. And how most of them look like they've had the air let out of them. You will see a big Texan or two, though.

Also, those who have heard me mention my disgust at how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and downtown Fort Worth boosters touted Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market as being modeled after Pike Place, well, the Pike Place video sort of shows you why I thought the local newspaper of record was not doing its job, and was pretty much spewing irresponsible propaganda....



And now a short walk through a small part of Pike Place Market...

Almost 1 Million Tourists Cruise Onboard in Seattle, Zero In Fort Worth

When I was up in the Pacific Northwest for a long month last summer, I spent only one day in downtown Seattle. I was at a thing called Art in the Park, in Pioneer Square. When I grew bored with the Art in the Park I took off and walked around downtown Seattle, through Pike Place Market, down to the waterfront, up to Westlake Center to ride the bus tunnel back to Pioneer Square.

I remember my first few days in Tacoma my sister remarking that Seattle had changed. That people seem to be all dressed up real nice. The grunge look had gone bye-bye.

Well, what I noticed was there were so many people wandering about, as in huge throngs. Now, Seattle has always been flooded with tourists in summer, but not like this. Pike Place was as crowded as it is around Christmas. The waterfront sidewalks were walls of people. When you live in a zone that really is not much of a tourist attraction, it is really noticeable when you're at a place that is.

I was perplexed by what appeared to be such a huge increase in the number of tourists. This morning, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I think I got the explanation.

Since I moved to Texas, 10 years ago, the cruise industry came to Seattle. There have always been boats to take you places, like a cruise up to Victoria, or the ferry boats across Puget Sound. But not those big cruise ships that sail the Caribbean. Since I moved, that has changed.

Both Seattle and Vancouver have become big cruise ship towns. 11 cruise ships sail out of Seattle, operated by Norwegian Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean. In 2008, 210 sailings brought a record 886,039 visitors to Seattle.

That is a lot of people. In 2008 Seattle led Vancouver in passenger numbers for the first time. That is likely to change. The reason being the reason the P-I had an article about Seattle cruise ships this morning.

Under the headline "Disney Cruise Lines Snubs Seattle," the article went on to say that Disney Cruise Line would launch 18 seven night cruises to Alaska on the ship Disney Wonder. And that the ships would sail from Vancouver.

Jeff James, vice-president of sales for Disney Cruise Lines, told The Vancouver Sun, "Seattle is a great port, however, we listened to our guests and believe that Vancouver will provide the experience they are asking for."

Well, I have been to both towns. I've always liked Vancouver a lot. It is very similar to Seattle, yet has some unique differences. Vancouver has a way funner Chinatown than Seattle's. Seattle now has light rail, Vancouver has had SkyTrain since around 1986. Both towns are surrounded by water and mountains, with Vancouver's mountains closer, but Seattle's bigger. Both towns have great downtowns and waterfronts. Both towns put on 2 of the most successful World's Fairs in history.

I'm thinking the best reason to sail out of Vancouver is it's closer to Alaska by about 100 miles.

I wonder if there will be any cruise ships docking at the little $1 billion lake Fort Worth thinks it is building in a project known as the Trinity River Vision? I suspect not. Maybe cruises could go from the little lake, up the unneeded flood diversion channel and back. I think Fort Worth should add a fake mountain to its fake lake. The original propaganda for the Trinity River Vision said it would turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. I remember when I read that in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram thinking that that was the nuttiest thing I'd read in that paper yet. And that covers a lot of nuttiness.

HOT Bothered Hiking & Whining In Texas

It is not 3 yet and we've hit 104. I went swimming this morning after the sun had arrived. The air was warmer than the pool, which makes the pool pleasant.

My hiking compulsion and broken bike had me on the Tandy Hills for the third day in a row. Two different Cheryl's, Cheryl V. and Cheryl P. asked me today about my compulsive hiking. What is it about Cheryl's that causes them to ask such questions?

The picture I took yesterday of beautiful downtown Fort Worth's Freeway Mixmaster and the Omni Convention Center, which I consider to be sort of architectural malpractice with its odd balconies sticking out from its sides, did not turn out too well.

When you zoom the camera past optical zoom to digital it's best to have it on a tripod. Yesterday I was real shaky, I think due to having just heard Tootsie Tonasket's harrowing story about a rattlesnake nearly killing her before she murdered the sweet, innocent, harmless reptile. Today I was not shaking, I was able to hold the camera steady and so got a better picture, it being one where you can see the goofy balconies. I've got actual closeup pictures of those balconies somewhere on this computer, but it's too HOT to go looking for pictures right now.

It was 99 when I left here for some natural sauna. I weighed 172 when I left. I drank four 18 ounce bottles of water, between weighing myself and getting back here and weighing myself again, to find I then weighed 170. My math skills are really bad, but I think I lost over 6 pounds of water.

After hiking I went to the Beach Street Wal-Mart where I saw an unusually large number of unusually large people, including the lady who checked me out. She was not so large that she no longer has a neck, like one of the most obese people I've seen, but she was so large that I would think it must be very difficult to do 8 hours of being a check-out person. I almost felt sorry for her.

In the Wal-Mart parking lot I saw something I have very rarely seen in Texas. A vehicle with Washington license plates. This caught my eye as soon as I exited my vehicle. It's pretty much mostly Texas plates you see here. It ain't exactly a tourist zone. Occasionally I'll see an Oklahoma plate or Arkansas or Louisiana or New Mexico. Even Kansas once in awhile. But rarely from further away.

When I first read of the Texas tourist statistics I did not see how the numbers could be right, because I see so few out of state cars. Then I found out that in Texas if you travel more than 30 miles to do something, you're considered a visiting tourist. If I were driving around in the Seattle zone right now at least half the vehicles would be having out of state or country plates.

I have been in parts of Texas that do seem to draw some out of state visitors. When I was at the LBJ National Historic Park, in Johnson City, I saw 3 vehicles with Washington plates. The first I'd seen in Texas. Each time I'm back in Washington I've seen Texas plates. Or read of some Texan doing some noteworthy antic, like accidentally driving into the bus/light rail tunnel that runs under downtown Seattle.

I think putting up signs like "DO NOT ENTER" is very presumptuous, making the assumption that everyone can read. Washington can be so snooty sometimes, assuming that just because most everyone up there graduates from high school with the ability to read, they should not assume that this is a universal situation. Because it isn't.

In 2004 I was in Tacoma, being driven back to where I was staying, by the then deputy mayor, in his Prius. So many Prius up there, so few Pick-ups. Anyway, he stopped to let me out and noticed a Pick-up with a Texas plate. He made some remark that I found very offputting. I'd been in Texas long enough to take slight umbrage at some remarks.

Seattle Bus Tunnel

In 2009 Seattle will finally have a light rail train that will run from Sea-Tac airport to downtown Seattle. The train will track through the Seattle Bus Tunnel that was built back in the 1990s. It's now being called the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.

Many visitors to Seattle don't realize a tunnel runs under downtown, at some points, deep under downtown. This would seem to be a tad unsettling in an area known to have earthquakes. Supposedly the bus tunnel is built to withstand an 8.0 quake. I'd rather be on top of the Space Needle for such an event though.

The Seattle Bus Tunnel makes it real easy to get around downtown. There are 5 huge stations, themed to their location, like the International District Station is Chinatown themed. The Pioneer Square station is Old Seattle themed. The University Street Station is sort of High Tech themed. Westlake Station is the biggest. There are entries from the Westlake Station to several department stores, like Nordstrom's flagship store and to Westlake Center, which is one of Seattle's vertical malls and is also the downtown terminus for the Monorail.

It is free to use the bus tunnel to get around downtown Seattle. In the video below, that I took a month ago, on August 7, you'll see how well used the Seattle Bus Tunnel is.

There is no similar transit system in downtown Fort Worth, nor is there a need for one, since there are no department stores, few attractions and few people, like tourists, on the streets with a need to get from one end of downtown to the other. Arlington has no public transit system. Recently Fort Worth's bus system, called The T, began offering Arlington people bus service to Fort Worth from a couple Arlington locations. Few are riding though.

In the past year Seattle has started up a new above ground streetcar line, called South Lake Union Transit. They named it that before they realized the acronym was SLUT. By the time it was realized that a different name might be a good idea it was too late, the locals had taken to calling it the SLUT train. That's a SLUT car you see in the pic.

South Lake Union is a boom zone on the north end of downtown Seattle. Lake Union is a natural lake, it isn't the result of anything like a Lake Union Vision Project. Someday Fort Worth may have a lake at the north end of its downtown, the result of the Trinity River Vision. Somehow I doubt if that lake ever floats a boat it'll end up being a boom zone like South Lake Union. South Lake Union has an actual visionary behind what's going on there in the form of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. Unfortunately, Fort Worth's billionaire benefactor is noted primarily for having bad taste in architecture with visions like naming a bunch of parking lots Sundance Square.

Meanwhile, Seattle has an actual public square at the heart of its downtown, thought they don't call it a square, it's called Westlake Center.

You'll see part of Westlake Center, both the 'square' and the vertical mall in the video below. And you'll ride with me through the Seattle Bus Tunnel to the Pioneer Square Station where we'll exit to someone singing about it being a beautiful world in Occidental Park.

Above I made mention of tourists. One thing that struck me this time up in Seattle is the huge increase in tourists from Europe and Asia. You'll see a lot of people from Japan in the bus with me in the video below.