Third Panther Island Bridge opens in Fort Worth. Now we wait for the channel
The Henderson Street bridge opened Tuesday, six years after construction began on three bridges for the Panther Island project.
The White Settlement Bridge opened in April, followed by the North Main Street Bridge in June. The bridges were once scheduled to open in 2017, but were delayed by design issues when Texas Department of Transportation inspectors wanted to take a closer look at the unique v-shaped piers.
The Henderson Street bridge portion of the project cost $38.6 million. It’s part of a larger $1.17 billion project to create an island north of downtown by cutting a 1.5-mile bypass channel between the forks of the Trinity River. The project has been billed as flood control as it would prevent river flooding while allowing some downtown levies to be removed.
The hope is that the newly created island will spur economic growth and waterfront development in an area dotted with empty lots and an abandoned baseball stadium.
A new apartment complex, Encore Panther Island, plans to begin leasing later this year.
At the 2014 groundbreaking, then Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price defended the bridge construction against criticism they would be “bridges to nowhere.” Price told the Star-Telegram that building the bridges over dry land would be cheaper than building over the completed channel.
Congress authorized federal funding for the channel in 2016, however, after a crackdown on government earmarks, the Trump administration denied the funding. It argued the project was not “policy compliant” because it had not submitted a comprehensive cost-benefit study.
Local officials expressed optimism at the North Main Street Bridge opening in June that the Biden administration would unlock funding for the project.
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 3:19 PM.
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