Residents trapped in their neighborhoods by traffic surrounding the Fort Worth Zoo
Perfect weather, an end to COVID restrictions, and half-price admission created the perfect storm Wednesday as residents said they were trapped by traffic from the Fort Worth Zoo.
The city and the Fort Worth Police department said they’ve been doing all they can to control the flow of traffic, but residents in the surrounding neighborhoods said it isn’t enough.
“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 31 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Amy Allibon, president of the Berkeley Place neighborhood association.
Allibon described scenes of bumper-to-bumper traffic on residential streets that made it near impossible for ambulances or firetrucks to get through the neighborhoods in case of emergency.
“An ambulance has to be able to get to my neighbor who’s 88 and might need an ambulance,” Allibon said.
Park Place Avenue, which connects to the zoo entrance at 1989 Colonial Parkway, was backed up all the way to Eighth Avenue, according to residents.
A Fort Worth police spokesperson said the department deployed at least 20 officers on special duty to control traffic along University Drive and Forest Park Boulevard, which are the two main thoroughfares leading to the zoo.
Officers were also stationed at the intersections of Interstate 30 and University Drive as well as Forest Park Boulevard and Berry Street, the spokesperson said.
It wasn’t enough Allibon said.
“It was Park Place, it was Windsor, it was every internal street in Berkeley which could lead to Forest Park and the zoo,” she said.
Allibon said the city should have anticipated the increased traffic after two years of COVID restrictions limited the normally large spring break crowds.
The zoo closed during spring break in 2020, and limited crowds with reservations in 2021.
Police knew about the potential for increased traffic, but nothing was specifically communicated that this year would be different from previous ones, the spokesman said.
Zoo officials also meet with the city about a month before spring break to plan how to handle traffic, said zoo spokesperson Avery Elander.
The city also put out a notice on March 11 giving residents alternative options to get to the zoo.
Families may be taking stay-cations because of increased gas prices, and the last two years have been a lot, Elander said.
“We’re happy to see people back, and we’re happy they’re spending that time with us,” she said.
The city is also running into obstacles with zoo patrons’ GPS systems routing them through residential neighborhoods, said parks director Richard Zavala.
“We put an electric sign on the freeway telling people to get off at University and they still wind up going down Forest Park,” he said.
Zavala said the priority for police is to make sure traffic doesn’t back up onto the freeway. He said one year traffic on Interstate 30 was backed up from University to Interstate 35W.
The city is doing everything it can to let the public know about alternate ways to get to the zoo so we don’t run into these problems, Zavala said.
The city will hold a meeting in the coming weeks to evaluate how it did managing this year’s zoo traffic, a spokesperson wrote in an email. It will make adjustments so as to not repeat the same mistakes next year, they wrote.
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