Walking Miles On My Neighborhood Sidewalks Past Disturbing Signs

Yesterday, Sunday, I had myself a mighty fine time on a mighty long walk around my neighborhood.

The City of Wichita Falls has so many amenities not available in the Texas town I lived in previously.

Like sidewalks.

Wichita Falls is like other modern American towns, with sidewalks on both sides of the street, with a landscaped buffer between the street and sidewalk.

I now have miles of this type modern amenity accessed as soon as I close the exit door on my abode.

In the first of the street scenes documenting a Texas town with sidewalks the scene is a bit tainted due to a Trump/Spence sign being in view.

Then a few minutes later I saw a different sign on a different street.

Texans for Clinton/Kaine.

Note the trees shading the sidewalk. Lots of big trees of various types, including one house which pretty much has a pine forest in its front yard. I must remember to take a picture of that one when next I walk by.

The last house I saw, as I exited Haiti Street to walk the Circle Trail back to my abode, had the disturbing homemade sign you see below stuck in its yard.

Anybody BUT HILLARY.

I imagine a lot of thoughtful thought went into making this sign. Was there a Hillary sign underneath which someone has defaced with the makeshift "Anybody BUT" message? And the yard owner has not yet noticed their sign has been defaced?

 Maybe I'll walk by this sign again tomorrow and see if it has changed for the better....

Sidewalk Nightmares: Fort Worth's Aim To Be Walkable

On the left you are looking at a screencap of part of an article I read yesterday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled Sidewalk dreams: Fort Worth aims to be a walkable city which I found to be a bit confounding.

A snip from the article...

Fort Worth City Councilman Dennis Shingleton said the city can encourage developers to build more sidewalks and connect developments with schools through various incentives.

“We have a chance to impose our will — if you will the bully pulpit — on developers and tell them here is what we want — we want sidewalks that are six feet wide,” Shingleton said as an example.

Now, why is it up to developers to develop Fort Worth's sidewalks? Do developers develop the roads the developments use?

How is it that other towns manage to have sidewalks on both sides of all the roads that run through their town? Like Tacoma. In Washington. I've walked all over Tacoma. I do not recollect ever walking anywhere in Tacoma where I was not walking on a sidewalk, a nice, wide sidewalk, usually with a strip of landscaping between the sidewalk and the road.

This same sidewalk reality exists in many other towns in which I have walked. Fort Worth is actually the first time I have ever experienced a town which is so sidewalk challenged. Well, there was the time I walked around in Algadones, Mexico and noticed there were few sidewalks. If I remember right I have opined about this perplexing problem previously, that being the Fort Worth sidewalk shortage, not the Algadones sidewalk shortage. This is the first time I've mentioned the Algadones sidewalk shortage.

In addition to learning about Fort Worth's sidewalk dreams, in this article I also learned about something called the Blue Zones initiative which somehow is a vision for walkable healthy cities. And then regarding this Blue Zones project thing there was the following disturbing paragraph...

The Blue Zones project in Fort Worth is headed by Julie Wilson, who said they received over 800 applications for the initial 18 staff positions to run the five-year initiative, and they are still accepting applications.

Julie Wilson? Is she not the controversial lady who used to be the chief propaganda shill for Chesapeake Energy? 800 applicants for 18 jobs? Are these paying positions? If so, how much is being spent to pay for the 18 Blue Zone staffers? And from whence is the money coming? Could that money not be better spent building sidewalks?

Why doesn't Fort Worth do something revolutionary, well revolutionary for Fort Worth, and put a sidewalk building bond issue on a ballot?

In Fort Worth you really do not need to waste money doing any sort of study to figure out where to build sidewalks.

Fort Worth's beleaguered walkers have already determined where the sidewalks need to be. To find out where a sidewalk needs to be all one needs to do is drive a Fort Worth road, Bridge Street or John T. White Road, for example, and make note of where people have worn a path in the dirt along side the road.

That is where you need a sidewalk.

No study needed.....

Taking A Fort Worth Risk Walking In A Town With A Sidewalk Shortage

Sidewalk Free Bridgewood Drive

 A couple days ago I found myself freshly annoyed regarding the town of Fort Worth's disgraceful neglect regarding installing sidewalks along side way too few of Fort Worth's streets.

I can, maybe, understand not worrying about sidewalks on side streets. But no sidewalks on main roads? Like 4 lane roads which lead to commercial enterprises that people feel the need to walk to?

The thing that freshly annoyed me a couple days ago, regarding Fort Worth's apparent collective disregard for a modern amenity, like sidewalks, was seeing 6 kids on skateboards rolling along sidewalk-free John T. White Road.

John T. White Road is a 4 lane boulevard with a wide grass covered median separating the lanes. I drive John T. White Road to get to my neighborhood Walmart. John T. White Elementary School opened on John T. White Road last year.

It seems only common sense, to me, that you have sidewalks on a road that leads to a school and to a shopping district. And it seems borderline criminally negligent for a city to lack sidewalks on such roads.

Now, the City of Fort Worth can not claim lack of funds as the reason why Fort Worth can not have sidewalks to the level of most modern cities. Fort Worth has so many excess funds that it is spending around $1 billion to build an un-needed flood control economic development project called the Trinity River Vision.

A Little Bit Of Sidewalk Does Not Go A Long Ways

It would seem that any town that can waste money on a goofy boondoggle, like the Trinity River Vision, can surely have itself a Fort Worth Sidewalk Vision.

I was freshly aggravated by Fort Worth's 3rd World-like sidewalk situation when I took a walk through my neighborhood this morning.

The two photos are looking south on Bridgewood Drive. As you can see in the photo at the top, locals have worn a dirt path along the sidewalk-less road.

In the second photo you are looking at a short section of sidewalk, which was installed when one of those ubiquitous dollar stores showed up a few years ago. Across the driveway there is no sidewalk in front of the Firestone store, or the Chevron station next to the Firestone stone.

Sidewalk-less Bridgewood Drive leads to dozens of businesses and restaurants, such as a Home Depot, several fast food joints, and a Luby's.

Would not one think that any city with pretensions of wanting to grow up and wear big city pants, let alone a town which regularly is the Envy of the Nation for various insipid things, would somehow manage to install sidewalks in its densely populated zones?

This subject is very perplexing to me, both the lack of sidewalks subject, and the fact that this lack does not seem to be an issue with anyone but me.

Very perplexing.

Driving On Fort Worth's New Crosswalks With An Electric Motorized Transport Device

After I left Village Creek Natural Historic Area today I headed north on Eastchase Boulevard to the location of my coffee purveyor on the north side of Interstate 30.

Several months ago I was surprised to see work being done to the overpasses over I-30 at Eastchase and at Cooks Lane, about a half mile west.

The sidewalks were being upgraded with wheelchair accessible ramps added.

I remember thinking to myself I'd never seen anyone walk across either the Cooks Lane or Eastchase freeway crossing.

So, I was a bit surprised, today, to be stopped at the light before crossing the freeway overpass, to look up to see a lady on some sort of motorized transport motoring on the new sidewalk crossings.

She'd made it up a rather steep hill from the Lowe's/Wal-Mart/Sam's Club zone. That must be a very powerful electric transport device to be able to haul so much mass up such an incline.

If I remember right, I think I actually heard myself opining that working on these crosswalks seemed like a huge waste of resources, considering how many areas of Fort Worth are in dire need of a sidewalk, in places where people actually walk.

So, color me deeply chagrined, now that I realize this particular lady on wheels would not have been able to safely cross the freeway, had these improvements not been made.

I wonder how far she was traveling on her motorized transport? I wonder if she drives it right in to Wal-Mart. Or does she switch to one of the Wal-Mart electric carts to do her shopping?

Extreme Danger: Fort Worth Slippery Bridge Alert

You are looking at the Dam/Bridge across the Trinity River, where the Trinity Trail leads out of Gateway Park.

We are on the south side of the river in the picture, looking northeast towards that spot I've mentioned before, where the gas driller pipeline Trinity River water suckers left a muddied levee in their wake.

Well, today turned treacherous in the muddy levee zone, but the treachery had nothing to do with anything about the Barnett Shale.

For several weeks, recently, the Trinity River was flooding over the Dam/Bridge. You may remember me showing you a picture of that. Well, as you can see, the river has gone down, you can now cross the Dam/Bridge.

At EXTREME risk.

The flood left a layer of slippery mud. Very slippery. Some moisture precipitated today, likely increasing the slipperiness. I realized it was slippery about 20 feet on to the Dam/Bridge, but I kept on going. It got worse. But I kept on going.

By the time I made it across the Dam/Bridge I decided I would not use it to return to the other side. Instead I used the Beach Street Bridge to cross the Trinity River to get to the north side.

Crossing the Trinity on the Beach Street Bridge had its own treacherousness. There is no sidewalk leading to the bridge. There is a very narrow mud path between the edge of the road and a railing. Cars pass about 2 feet from a hapless walker. When you get to the bridge there is a sidewalk. A very narrow sidewalk.

Why are so many sidewalks on so many roads in Fort Worth so narrow? Should this not be some sort of code enforced thing? I've never seen a grown city with such sad sidewalks, or out right lack of sidewalks in heavily pedestrianed areas. I should go out and about and take pictures. It's appalling.

Anyway, signs need to be put up warning people about the slippery, mud-covered Dam/Bridge. Or block it all together. Or clean it up.

It was bad enough walking. I was totally appalled when I realized I'd biked across that Dam/Bridge many more times than I've walked it and had I been biking it today, I have no doubt I would have lost control of my bike and gone flying over Trinity Falls, likely never to be seen again.

After I got off the Beach Street Bridge I walked to where I could view the spillway, looking for any signs of a bike. I saw none.

I'm not exaggerating. This was extremely dangerous today. A very bad thing.