djold1

The most overlooked improvement is one that doesn't seem to be happening:  Getting the truck traffic off of North Main/Biz 281.  This will eventually have to be done if the Trinity Vision is to succeed and it should be done sooner rather than later..  

I apologize to the Forum members..  The reason I didn't post directly to the Forum is that I didn't want to mess around and upload my little clip to remote storage that could be linked. I thought that an email would be simpler.  Who knew that I would zapped for that?  

Anyway as I have said several times, I read this Forum constantly and reply occasionally but don't post pix because I would rather not waste the time it takes to make the links.  I do occasionally post a link to a Facebook point simply because it's much easier for me to deal with.  This is just one of those things that are peculiar to Forums like this and can't be helped..   

You could do a little better with your attitude when you're asking for information..  If you will send your email address to me at xdjold1@gmail.com I will send you what I have found..

Thanks for this..  good history....

Here's a Fort Worth Gazette blog about some local history starting in 1889

Financing all this is really pretty easy.  Simply direct a small portion of the B Cycle revenue to a building & maintenance fund for new bridges, accessibility and maintenance.  And then go directly to the source of those benefiting by licensing all bikes with a a wheel size of 22" and larger.  

The fee structure should cover the cost of the bike highways and their maintenance, proportional to the percentage use of the surface by those on bikes.  I think the local bikers associations would immediately go for this since it is to their benefit and would eagerly help sell the idea of the b-highway funding to others.  And after all, what could be more fair?  An improved and maintained biking ways supported directly by those who use it.  

I'm  surprised that the local biking groups haven't voluntarily proposed something like this already to the Mayor who I think would immediately start things in motion....   

Non sequitar.. How does the West tragedy in any way relate to the statistical safety status of the 7000 wells in Tarrant county?  That's about like comparing county auto deaths to West Nile.

Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, extending from about 10th St. down to Lancaster, is simply a romantic dream about 50+ years gone.  There were certainly a few buildings that should have and could have been saved, but by the 50's the Acre was a tired old lady long past her prime of the late 1800's and early 1900's. 

Does anyone really doubt that Fort Worth desperately needed a competitive convention center and performance venue by the 1960's? Downtown was run down. Dangerous at night. Retail was fleeing to the suburbs.  The Sun did not Dance at all. 

Where was a more logical place to put the new convention center?  The options didn't exist. Exactly where it is now is where it made sense and since that time it has done its job. The would be no new buildings, hotels, retail, Sundance Square and other people pleasing places without the convention center. 

As time has passed its style has lost favor.. probably a blessing.  But the resources were there to update several years a go and the resources exist now to send the saucer to its reward to be replaced by something more useful today. 

Maybe in remembrance one of the new auditoriums or halls could be be named for Hell's Half Acre.  Except when the Baptists come to convene..  

Whatever its height, the design needs to fit in with the monumental buildings along the south side of Lancaster.  The wimpy little T&P lofts building next to the Terminal is out of  context and embarrassing. I don't mean the design has to be Deco or staid, simply that it should be outstanding and complementary to its location. 

Some thoughts about the preceding comments without multiply quoting ad absurdem:

Light rail (Interurbans) & streetcars were  primio propagators of population expansion or what some call sprawl. The first car lines that ran to Mistletoe, or Poly or Rosen Heights or Arlington Heights were done to facilitate the flight from the nasty  smelly, smoky downtown area. When the interurban came in 1902  and then expanded to Cleburne in 1913 they were a realtor's dream. New subdivision's popped up along the rails and the city limits kept stretching out. Did anyone complain about this expansion at the time? 

If, as has been suggested above, the streetcar system would simply take people out of cars in the Central Core, which I presume is about two miles or less from Sundance Square in all directions except east,  how many total cars would be projected to stay at home and how many individual riders spread over the 4 or more legs or the transit system would be served?  Not counting of course those already using the existing bus system.   

How would this localized central core streetcar system help in any way to staunch the influx of cars carrying worker bees from the gritty but highly liveable suburbs?

What happens to the hapless central core dweller when their abode is more than two blocks from a streetcar line even though they are part of the "choice" demographic that is so dear to the village transit planner?  

And if you're talking about waiting at a car stop in Texas weather, I suggest that the headway between cars moving in the same direction should be a rock solid 15 minutes or less during the entire service hours. Otherwise, the "choice" will be personal transportation the next time. Now... start taking the total mileage of the streetcar system and compute the total number of cars at 2 million+ each that would be required to give that kind of headway... and presumably twice that headway during rush hour.  

Curious minds... 

Here's a little 1880's Fort Worth history on the Fort Worth Gazette blog..

Silly me...  not to have realized that two buildings that look butt ugly 20+ hours of the day are justified by their reflectability lasting a few minutes for a few viewers ...   

Interesting question as to whether a streetcar in this area would be dedicated to the idea of delivering riders to the front door of selected businesses on a favored street.  Or, whether it would be designed to move riders into an area from which the rider might disperse to various destinations.  Add to that the old fashioned idea of making easy transit available for urban village residents. Then complicate things more by also accommodating longer distance movements of visitors to and from the three major entertainment and convention districts.

If the placeholders one block deep on either side along 7th street or any other similar area want to have their own Toonerville line designed to dredge bodies from the Sundance area into their little world, then it should be their privilege to to tote the whole note. No TIF. no grants from the city, etc..  Just pay your money and get your dedicated rails.   It's not as if 7th street and the Cultural District (Does this awkward term imply that all other areas of FW are NOT cultural or cultured?) is an area needing gentrification or economic development.  Same deal if the moguls in downtown were to see an advantage in a loop in that district.  

But if you're looking at real plan for the city that would involve real benefits for all kinds of users and that would be financed from a general tax base, then you have got to think about all aspects of the plan, not just those who will have tracks in front of their entrance doors.. 

I think it would be unwise for anyone or any entity to "partner" with TCC on this.  Their track record is not good and the words in their releases are pretty mealy mouthed. That property needs to be separated from TCC completely.  And soon before it becomes just a heap of rubble... 

From the FWST article lead:

" FORT WORTH — The Tarrant County College District has decided to explore selling, leasing or using the century-old abandoned TXU power plant building on north Main Street, which it bought a decade ago as part of its plan for a stunning downtown campus that would span the Trinity River."

Well, as we know,  the plan to build a "stunning downtown campus" utterly failed from an aesthetic & fiscal standpoint. It resulted in a structure that joins the exterior of the MOM big-box building as a monumental waste of architectural concrete. We can only hope that both buildings soon receive a planting of fast-growing ivy that will eventually cover the disgrace. 

The TCC did partially, at great expense to the taxpayers, redeem themselves with the acquisition of the Radio Shack campus and its buildings which are neutrally contemporary without raising the gorge of passersby.

The announcement that the TCCD leadership is just now now "exploring their options" is interesting.  It's hard to believe that there has not been a carefully constructed plan to dawdle until the real estate market recovered and/or Panther Island awoke. This, no matter what the consequences to the the historic old TXU plant might be with their enlightened demolition-by-neglect policy. 

Consider the past way that land has moved between the TCCD and other taxpayer owned entities in the Trinity Bottoms over the years. It may not be too large a stretch to assume that a deal has been done already to transfer the old plant out of TCCD's unloving hands and that the current mumbling's are simply the overture to the main play.  

If, as John Roberts and others have said previously, the old TXU holdings fall into private hands, then any hope of oversight for historic preservation probably fails unless the buyer comes up with some killer use for the structures that will justify it financially.  It could happen..  but..