FORT WORTH, Texas — If you travel down Fort Worth's Foch Street, in the heart of the West 7th entertainment district, you better pay attention: chances are you may encounter a wrong-way driver.
"I freak out," Henry Marlin said. "It scares me."
Marlin is a bartender at Oni Ramen, at the corner of West 7th and Foch. He watches it all unfold with horror from his perch every day.
"I'll even walk outside the store and just wave at them, 'Hey, turn around!'" he said.
Foch St., and other roads in this area, became one-way last summer in order to help traffic flow and increase pedestrian safety in this busy entertainment district. But even since then, WFAA has recorded driver after driver either somehow missing – or straight-up ignoring – the multiple signs saying the street is one way.
We were even there in December when, according to police records, officers responded to a "wrong-way driver investigation" on Foch and Morton.
"It usually takes some time for people to get used to the changes," said Tanya Brooks, the assistant director of the city's Transportation and Public Works Department.
"Six months though?" we asked.
"Not six months," she said.
Brooks said, overall, the district's new one-way roads have worked to improve safety. But Foch Street is proving problematic.
"We are aware there are still some wrong way drivers along this corridor," she said.
Brooks believes it's often people who just don't want to go all the way around the block to turn onto West 7th Street. But we showed her a video of a driver recently who drove northbound on southbound-only Foch, and then slowly inched their way into oncoming east-and-westbound traffic on West 7th to take a left. There isn't even a traffic light at the northbound intersection.
"They looked a little confused to me," Brooks said. "We're thinking maybe we need to go back to the table."
Brooks said the city will look at its options, including installing bumps on the road that help drivers feel when they're turning the wrong way.
"More signs, flashing lights, definitely," Marlin suggested.
Whatever it is, Marlin said something needs to change, or someone may get hurt.