Comments on: Practice What You Preach

By: dunny

dunny — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:00:15 +0000

I’ve given up on working with council members and park construction companies. A few years back I was on the committee for the Woodbridge, NJ park. After giving my input of the massive difference between pre-fab and concrete, and even having my buddy BF come to a meeting to give his input/experience, the town that I grew up in decided to put a pre-fab park next to the trails that I began at. I made sure that this park would, at the very least, get a decent 5 ft spine. They got the spine and opposing 6 ft qtr correct, then had a mellow 5ft qtr. on the other side, hence killing all momentum. I’ve given up on skateparks and haven’t even ridden this past winter. This is why I’ve developed such a passion for trails in PA. Digging season just began in here. Now, I just have to finish working on my damn house so I’m not a hippocrate at the trails this year.

By: Brock Gomez

Brock Gomez — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:01:12 +0000

We have been going through the same process with SITE in Baton Rouge for the last 2 years. Surprisingly they do listen to what you have to say. It is unfortunate you only had a small group of riders at the meeting. We (BMXers) were lucky enough to find out about all of our design meetings well in advance and had a pretty strong showing at the design meetings. Since we had roughly the same amount of BMXers as skaters our design wound up with more bowled sections than just flat street-inspired obstacles. You will probably have another design meeting with SITE in the near future where they bring back a few potential designs based on the feedback they got from the cut and paste thing (that was kinda weird). If you guys can get a larger presence at this second meeting (if that is what SITE has planned) you should be able to have more input on the design. Good luck, the process is a long and frustrating one. We’ve been working on this park in BR for about 8 years officially and they still haven’t broken ground. Even when it gets built there is no guarantee that they won’t just slap up a “No Bikes Allowed” sign. Keep working though, someone has to do it…

By: mlr5102

mlr5102 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:42:50 +0000

Sorry to hear about the bum turnout.. I live in western PA or I would have been there. Wish I was out west enjoying the nice weather tho. I know a lot of our parks took a financial hit and are now shut down. Luckily a few have still remained open in the past years and given us shelter in the cold winters. Its cool that the building company let everyone have input on the design of the park, but it sounds like its going to get taken over by skateboarders.. even if they let the bikes in. I wish you the best of luck