Can Trinity River Vision Boondogglers Build Bridges Any Faster?

No, anyone familiar with Fort Worth's current sponsorship of America's Biggest Boondoggle, that is not what you might think it is which you are looking at here.

No, it is not a section of one of Fort Worth's pitiful Panther Island bridges, stuck in slow motion construction, barely above the ground, slowly built over dry land.

What you are looking at here is a section of light rail under construction in the Sound Transit zone of Puget Sound. I am guessing this is a section heading into downtown Bellevue.

I saw this Could Sound Transit build light rail faster? It wouldn’t be easy article this morning in the Seattle Times, and once again was struck by the fact that an article like this, with facts such as those contained in the article, about the subject of a local public works project, is not the type thing one would ever expect to read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something like Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District, which has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Have you seen an article headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram along the line of Could Trinity River Vision Build Bridges Faster? Nope, that newspaper has not had a single line of legit explanation as to what the problem has been with the building of those three simple little bridges being built over dry land to possibly one day manage to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Just the first four paragraphs of this Could Sound Transit build light rail faster? It wouldn’t be easy article contain elements one would never expect to read in an article about Fort Worth's hapless project in that town's hapless only newspaper of record...

When Sound Transit successfully sought a record $54 billion tax package to finance eight light-rail extensions, more commuter rail and bus rapid transit in 2016, the agency’s supporters called their campaign Mass Transit Now.

They chose that slogan even though some rail lines won’t open for another 11 to 22 years.

Traffic Lab recently asked readers what they’d like to know about Puget Sound transportation, and the most popular question came from Timothy Chang: “Is it possible to speed up the construction of light rail? If so, how?”

Construction schedules of five to 10 years are typical for major transit projects in the U.S. and Europe, and can’t be compressed much, as Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff has often said. In the Seattle area, planning and engineering take just as long. The best way to speed light-rail delivery may be for politicians and community members to unite early on easy-to-build routes.

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Fort Worth locals, how many things can you spot in the above four paragraphs that you would not expect to see in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article about the town's infamous imaginary flood control boondoggle?

Let's see if we can help.

Imagine the concept of convincing voters to approve a $54 billion bond issue, in 2016. Two years after Fort Worth began construction, with a TNT boom, of its three little bridges over dry land, hoping to one day connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island. Fort Worth voters have never voted to fund the building of those bridges, in any legitimate sense, any aspect of that which has become such an embarrassing Boondoggle. That 2016 Sound Transit bond issue passage was only the most recent voter approval to Sound Transit proposals.

In the second paragraph we do see something in common between this Puget Sound area project and Fort Worth's Boondoggle. Some rail lines won't open for another 11 to 22 years. The Fort Worth Boondoggle has an ever shifting project timeline, but many observers do not think anyone will be actually able to see the Trinity River Vision for another decade or two.

Something called Traffic Lab asked Puget Sound locals about Puget Sound transportation issues. And got legit feedback. Fort Worth's Boondoggle touts imaginary public input at meetings no one has any record of having happened, which the Fort Worth Boondoggle propagandists tout resulted in almost 100 citizen requested amenities be part of the imaginary vision.

Anyway, it seems just baffling how two areas of the same nation can be so different, one operating in a modern, progressive democratic type fashion, the other fumbling along in third world backwards backwater mode.

So perplexing, all those knuckleheads who run Fort Worth in their old-fashioned Fort Worth Way have to do is go a few miles to the east, to Arlington, or Dallas, to see a town more successfully manage building big things. Or go visit Austin.

You do not have to exit Texas to visit modern America, but you do have to leave Fort Worth...

Looking For What Fort Worth's Stalled Boondoggle Needs To Find

I saw what you see here this morning in the Seattle Times. Another instance of something I read in a west coast online news source I would not be expecting to be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something going on in Fort Worth and the county of Tarrant, in which Fort Worth is located.

In the $225 million more needed to build light rail across I-90 bridge article there were a couple bits info of the sort one would not be reading about Fort Worth's bizarre Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, affectionately known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Five paragraphs from the Seattle Times article....

The cost to build light rail on Interstate 90 between Seattle and Bellevue has zoomed $225 million higher than Sound Transit once estimated, now that final engineering work has revealed the challenge of retrofitting the roadway.

Transit-board members voted unanimously to approve a contract increase Thursday afternoon with construction group Kiewit-Hoffman.

The additional money would come out of contingency funds for the Eastside line, without causing delays or a tax increase.

The vote raises the contract amount to $712 million for 7 miles of work, from the International District/Chinatown Station to South Bellevue. It’s a crucial phase in creating a $3.7 billion East Link corridor to downtown Bellevue and Overlake, where train service is scheduled to begin in 2023.

The job includes building the world’s only trackway on a floating bridge. The roadway moves with Lake Washington’s water level and must be kept buoyant despite the weight of tracks, ties and trains to be placed in the existing express lanes.

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First off, let's talk about the transparency inherent in the above information. Fort Worth's pitiful Trinity River Vision (short version of the ever changing project name) has had a mysterious malady cause the cessation of construction of the Boondoggle's three simple bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island. The bridge construction halt has gone on for over a year now.

The Boondoggle's boondogglers have not shared with the public why their bridge construction area has become a construction ghost town. And due to the fact that Fort Worth does not have a real newspaper engaging in this practice called investigative journalism, no one knows what has actually gone wrong with the Ghost Bridges.

Unlike the Sound Transit Light Rail project, Fort Worth's embarrassing boondoggle has never been funded in the way most public works projects are funded. Voters in the Sound Transit area have approved multiple funding measures over the years. Voters in Fort Worth have never been allowed to vote for what has become a boondoggly mess directed by a local  politician's unqualified son.

The Sound Transit project design has built in contingency funding to cover unforeseen cost increases.
 
No one knows how much extra funding will be needed if Fort Worth's cloudy vision ever becomes something someone can see. For instance, the diversion dam, which will direct flood waters into the ditch which may be dug under those three stalled bridges, has not been designed and engineered, yet. Who knows how much such a thing will cost?

In one of the above paragraphs from the Seattle Times article mention is made of the fact that the $3.7 billion East Link from downtown Seattle to Bellevue will begin train service in 2023.

In a Star-Telegram propaganda piece about America's Biggest Boondoggle's stalled bridges J.D. Granger was quoted as saying, "the project's infrastructure should be completed by 2023". No one knows what J.D. means by infrastructure.

I am no longer living in the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle zone, so my mailbox no longer sees the bizarre quarterly Trinity River Vision Authority Updates.  Currently I assume the Summer Update has arrived in people's mailboxes and that it is a slick full color propaganda production touting all the floating on the river music events upcoming, along with other bits of fluffy nonsense, with no mention made of the stalled bridges or any of the other myriad problems.

The Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has never had a project timeline. Periodically the propaganda will tout something as having a timeline, such as having a big bang TNT ceremony for the start of construction of one of those bridges, with a  four year project timeline, to build a simple bridge over dry land. Now stalled for over a year.

Public works projects in modern parts of America have project timelines, and full transparency regarding the progress of the project.

For instance, below is a simple graphic from the WSDOT, via the Seattle Times. Have you seen anything similar from America's Biggest Boondoggle? Anything even this simple?

The Trinity River Central City Uptown  Panther Island District Vision can not produce a map showing what is under construction.

I suppose a map could be produced showing what has been constructed, and then gone out of business, like the highly touted Cowtown Wakepark.

I guess a project graphic map could show where the Boondoggle has produced an embarrassing water venue with an imaginary pavilion sitting on an imaginary island, with really cool concrete enclosed outhouses with outdoor showers to wash off the dirty river water when one finishes a Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Float....

Will Fort Worth Ever Need To Add Longer Trains To Meet Light Rail Demand?

I saw this this morning in the Seattle Times and thought to myself that this is definitely something I would not be seeing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about a similar thing happening in Fort Worth.

Some excerpts from the Seattle Times Sound Transit to add longer trains to meet unexpected light-rail demand article....

Sound Transit will put some longer trains on its light rail tracks beginning Monday, to carry the unexpectedly big crowds using the new University of Washington and Capitol Hill stations.

Three-car trains will alternate with the usual two-car trains, spokesman Bruce Gray said Wednesday.

The agency opened a new $1.8 billion tunnel from Westlake Station to UW and Capitol Hill on Saturday. Passengers are finding full platforms and trains at peak times, and sometimes waiting for the next train, Gray said.

And that’s happening while UW is on spring break, and Seattle Central College in exam week.

Roughly 57,000 passengers used the 19-mile light-rail corridor from UW to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Tuesday, Gray said. That followed 67,000 people on opening day, 35,000 on Sunday and 47,000 on Monday. Previous weekday ridership was around 35,000 boardings.

So the counts are already as high as Sound Transit projected for next year — with not only these two stations, but the Angle Lake Station beyond the airport scheduled to open in September, with 1,050 park-and-ride stalls.

Sound Transit aims to carry nearly — but not more than — 150 people in each railcar, or 450 in a three-car train. That sort of volume means about half are seated, half standing, and people can readily enter or exit. Similar-sized trains in Asia might hold 200 people per railcar, considered a crush load here.

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Apparently Puget Sounders are liking their new light rail mass transit method of traveling. Soon Puget Sound voters will be voting on a multi-billion dollar extension of the Link Light Rail. The newly opened extension to the University of Washington cuts the commute time of someone living in the Rainier Valley from around an hour and a half to half an hour, with no need to find a parking space.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, riding the Fort Worth antiquated T bus public transit it takes about an hour to make it from my location, eight miles, to downtown Fort Worth.

There is an attempt underway to add a commuter rail line to transit options in Tarrant County.

The subject of this new commuter rail line in Tarrant County came up yesterday in a series of Facebook comments made regarding yesterday's blogging titled Fort Worth Star-Telegram Thinks Someone Goofed On The Panther Island Bridge Design.

Chris Putnam commented--- One correction to Durango's story. The TRV isn't America's - or even Tarrant County's biggest boondoggle - that honor goes to TexRail with a $1B price tag and unknown operating costs to construct 23 miles of commuter rail that will service less than one half of one percent of the Tarrant population. TRV is a close 2nd.

To which Durango said--- I am sticking with the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision as being Tarrant County's and America's Biggest Boondoggle. America's Biggest Boondoggle has been boondoggling along longer than any of America's other boondoggle candidates, with very little to show for the effort. America's Biggest Boondoggle has multiple facets that enhance its boondoggle status. You have wasting almost a million bucks on a work of art that looks like an abstract garbage can, unveiled in a solemn ceremony that was very boondoggle worthy. You have the totally unqualified son of a local congresswoman put in charge of America's Biggest Boondoggle so as to motivate the mama to secure federal funds. Adding corruption to the mix enhances the TRCCUPIV's boondoggle status. Then we have the wanton abuse of eminent domain. The son of the local congresswoman has what is known as a Frat Boy mentality. None of America's other Biggest Boondoggle candidates have added items to the agenda like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floating beer parties in a polluted river. None of America's other Biggest Boondoggle candidates has gone through so many name changes, let alone oddities like calling a chunk of a land an island, where there is no island....

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....

Wondering About The Effect Of Fort Worth's Citizen's Minimalist Public Participation In Proposed Public Works

Last night I was lost on the Internet, going from link to link, and at one point I ended up at Wikipedia's article about the Sound Transit Link Light Rail system. Sound Transit is a light rail mass transit system similar to the Dallas DART train system.

Sound Transit moves people in the Western Washington counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish. King County is where Seattle is located, Tacoma is in Pierce County, Everett is in Snohomish County.

Previously, on more than one occasion, when I've compared something in the D/FW zone to the Seattle zone I've heard simplistic comments, like all you need to know about me is Seattle good, Fort Worth bad. I have explained, previously, the Seattle zone and the D/FW zone are the metro areas with which I am most familiar and so when something strikes me as sort of profoundly different, I  tend to notice it and comment on it. If that makes Fort Worth sound bad and Seattle sound good, well, when one holds up a mirror one can't complain about what one sees, if one is being honest.

So, I have long noticed that when an election takes place in Texas there is very little to vote on. No initiatives, referendums, few bond issues, few issues of any sort. I think there may have been some sort of road building bond issue since I was in Texas, but I don't remember being motivated to vote on it, one way or the other.

I have also noticed that HUGE public works projects can happen in Texas with no public vote. Such as the billion dollar Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Now, of the west coast cities Seattle was late to adding light rail to its transit mix, lagging way behind San Francisco, Portland and Vancouver. At the same point in time, in the late 1960s, (or was it early 1970s?), that San Francisco approved building the BART rail system, the Puget Sound zone rejected the light rail part of a bond issue called Forward Thrust, that being the vote that gave Seattle the now gone Kingdome, among many other things, including new water treatment installations to clean up Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

Decades later, in the 1990s, with traffic getting really bad, voters finally approved light rail, currently up and running and expanding.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, little gets voted on. How is it this town can not replace the decrepit Will Rogers Memorial Center, where rodeos are held during the Stock Show? How can the town known as Cowtown, that claims to be Where the West Begins, not figure out how to build a replacement for a seriously outdated facility?

Fort Worth built the Will Rogers Memorial Center way back in 1936. Since 1970 Seattle built the Kingdome, Safeco Field, the Kingdome replacement Seahawk football stadium, expanded Key Arena and is about to start construction on a new basketball arena for the incoming new Seattle Supersonics.

Since 1970, near as I can tell, Fort Worth has built nothing of the sort of things I've seen built in Seattle.

Oh, I forgot, Fort Worth built the now very run-down La Grave Field where Fort Worth has a professional baseball team playing in leagues with teams from towns with populations in the 20,000 range, give or take a few people.

Why such a difference between two towns, with one of them being known as one of the Greatest Cities in the World?

Well, I think I know what causes one key difference between Seattle and Fort Worth, that being public participation in proposed public works.

Read the following three paragraphs from the Wikipedia article about Sound Transit Link Light Rail and see if you can spot differences between how things are done and come to fruition in progressive, liberal, Washington, and think about how public works projects come about, or don't come about, in less progressive, less liberal Fort Worth and environs...

In November 1996, voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved increases in sales taxes and vehicle excise taxes to pay for a $3.9 billion transit package that included $1.7 billion for a light rail system, including Central Link and Tacoma Link. Over the next several years, debates raged over various issues surrounding the Central Link line.

Sound Transit's Phase 2 plan, under the name of ST2 (Sound Transit 2), is the plan for the second phase of Link Light Rail expansion. ST2 was put before voters in November 2007 as part of the "Roads and Transit" measure, which included hundreds of miles of highway expansion along with the light rail, but failed to pass. Sound Transit then put another ST2 plan on the ballot in November 2008. The measure passed by large margins. The plan will extend light rail to Lynnwood Transit Center in the north, S. 272nd St. in Federal Way to the south, and Downtown Bellevue and Overlake Transit Center to the east.

In November 2008, voters approved the construction of an East Link light rail line connecting the city of Seattle to Mercer Island and the Eastside communities of Bellevue and Redmond as part of the Proposition 1 measure. This line will split from Central Link just south of the International District/Chinatown Station in downtown Seattle, extend across the I-90 bridge express lanes through downtown Bellevue and serve the Overlake Transit Center, including Microsoft headquarters.

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Voters voting on a public works project. What a concept. Debates raging over various issues. What a concept. Connecting towns by light rail. What a concept.

Voting on Boondoggles in Texas and Washington

I mentioned last week, or was it the week before, that voting is so different in Texas than I was used to in Washington. In Texas it seems you vote on dozens upon dozens of judges. And a couple other things. I didn't bother voting on the judges because I knew nothing about them. It took me less than 15 seconds to vote in Texas. It used to take way longer in Washington.

I did vote yes on the only to non-human things on the ballot, that being allowing booze to be sold in stores and restaurants in Fort Worth. I did not understand the need for these two propositions because you can already buy booze in stores and restaurants in Fort Worth.

By way of showing the extreme contrast in what the citizens get to vote for in Washington and Texas, three Washington counties, King, Pierce and Snohomish voted in favor of expanding the, soon to open, light rail. And to expand the regional bus system. The light rail will now go north to Lynnwood in Snohomish County, south to Federal Way and east, across the I-90 floating bridge, to Bellevue and Redmond. Redmond is where Microsoft is located.

I can't imagine any combo of the counties that make up the D/FW Metroplex voting on a proposition together for their mutual benefit. When the Dallas Cowboys demanded a new stadium there was no suggestion that all of North Texas vote to fund it, or the towns of the D/FW Metroplex, or even one county of the Metroplex. Instead it fell to the little town of Arlington to vote to tax themselves to build the $billion plus stadium. And abuse their neighbors with the most outrageous use of eminent domain in American history.

Contrast what was done to Arlington to get a new stadium for Jerry Jones with what was done in Seattle to get the Seahawks a new stadium. The entire state of Washington voted and passed the proposal to tear down the Kingdome and build a new stadium. The population of Washington is smaller than the population of the D/FW Metroplex.

Fort Worth is moving ahead with a, in my opinion, bizarre, likely boondoggle plan, to alter the Trinity River to build a little lake, some canals, a flood control diversion channel and some wetlands restoration. This is called the Trinity River Vision. The main trouble I see with this supposed vision is that the citizens of Fort Worth have not been allowed to vote on this project which will greatly alter their city.

In my opinion it should be against the law to use eminent domain to take property for projects the public has not approved of via the ballot box.

The fact that the citizens of Fort Worth do not get to vote on Fort Worth projects may be why so many of them turn into boondoggles. The Ruling Junta does not have to make its case to the people, they just plow ahead, like a dictatorship. Stalin used to come up with some rather goofy Trinity River Vision type boondoggles. There I would have been likely shot for calling a Stalin project a boondoggle.

Here in Fort Worth I feel relatively safe from the Ruling Junta. Relatively.