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| Fort Worth's Long Gone Light Rail Subway |
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....
