Taking it to the street: is your skatepark really meeting the needs of your community's skaters? Take a look at a new street skating design.

Perhaps you've seen a situation like this in your community: skateboarders run amok in the streets, causing property owners, citizens and parents to storm city hall clamoring for a solution. Laws are passed, steep fines levied and city employees are directed to defile prominent landmarks with "skate knobs" in a desperate attempt to stem what appears to be an irresistible tide of recreational anarchy.

For 20 years, stewards of public assets have tried--and failed--to discourage skateboarding. It's little wonder those who have advocated for--and invested in--their first public skatepark are humbled by the quiet realization that traditional skateparks alone may not be the answer.

Realignment 

To date, most solutions have been based upon an ignorance of skateboard culture, or by leveraging dated and sometimes impertinent metaphors. Two myths in particular are just plain wrong.

For example, most people outside skateboarding aren't aware that an overwhelming majority of professional skateboarders rarely participate in competitions; almost all professional skaters earn a living through product endorsements and appearances in magazines, DVDs and on the Internet. The industry quantifies athlete value through a matrix demonstrating media exposure rather than competition rankings.

In the past, the skateboarding landscape was dominated by an elite group of stars venerated by skaters everywhere. Today local skaters are more likely to emulate a local hero who earned sponsored status through means outlined above, and that local hero probably doesn't actually earn anything beyond free equipment.

The traditional skatepark itself is another anachronism; an adaptation of the amusement park metaphor innovated 35 years ago and optimized to maximize profits by catering to a genre of skateboarding that today exists only on the fringes. Sadly, the contemporary skatepark exists in too many cities: fenced attractions isolated from other user groups, featuring elements catering to one genre of skateboarding or emulating layouts more common to a video game or televised exhibition than anything mainstream skaters actually ride. Add a concessionaire charging admission, and you have a skatepark, circa 1977.

History

Conventional wisdom holds that skateboarding "died" in the late 1970s, when for-fee skateparks disappeared. However, even during these lean years, when no legal venue existed and skaters spilled into the streets, skateboarders adapted to urban and industrial infrastructure, contributing to an athletic evolution.

The result is a flavor of skateboarding called "street skating," and most skateboarders today refer to themselves as "street skaters." Skateboarding culture and athletic progression has created a generation that actually prefers the streets to skateparks. Breaking this pattern has proven more difficult than adapting to it, considering that nearly 25 years of aggressive criminalization has failed to register much impact. Pick up any mainstream skateboard magazine and it's clear: street skateboarding reigns as skateboarding's dominate genre.

Many communities have concluded that if a street skater is provided with a quality skatepark featuring the kind of skateboarding they "really want," skaters will be cured of their street skating malady.

However, testing "underpowered" facilities after just three to four years of operation demonstrates that a simple playground of obstacles or pit of flowing bowls fail to attract, engage and (most critically) retain athletes who invest deeply into a genre that's already more than 20 years old--skaters have been sliding down hand railings since the Reagan administration. Your skaters probably don't "really want" anything--chances are good they are quite satisfied with provided infrastructure, albeit originally designed for other uses.

Skatepark Deconstruction 

So what is a "traditional skatepark," and why do we continue trying to force it as a solution when it's becoming clear that it is insufficient at addressing the problem at hand?

Close your eyes and ask: what does a skatepark look like? Most visualize something akin to an amusement park for disco-era skateboarders: swimming pool replicas, ramps and other elements. These are metaphors established in the 1970s and reinforced through televised competitions and vendor marketing to non-skaters, but often out of step with contemporary skateboarding.

An inexpensive method exists to challenge, if not destroy, this tidy yet artificial mindset. Ask a local law enforcement officer for a tour of your community's favorite skateboard problem areas. Walk these sites with the trained eye of a landscape architect, and note a significant and consistent pattern:

* Almost all of these areas are about 1,500 to 3,500 square feet in size

* Most features are at right angles to each other, rather than ramped

* Most include stairs, drop-offs, ledges and/or curbs

* Most include a flat open area

* Most are free of tripping hazards, particularly in critical areas such as top of the stairs or bottom of any ramped or banked structure

Much has been said about "skateparks," but sometimes these parks are not addressing the problem at hand. Another way to solve the problem is to create "skatepark systems," and the good news is that your community almost certainly possesses one; the bad news is that it's probably illegal.

In the most highly publicized project demonstrating a trend towards the rejection of the traditional skatepark metaphor, the city of Philadelphia recently approved plans for the Schuylkill River skatepark, which is in fact a city park designed for the entire community which happens to include skate-friendly architecture and art, rather than a single-use recreational facility.

Anthony Bracali, one of the architects involved in the project reported to the Daily Pennsylvanian that "This isn't your typical skatepark project, this isn't the concrete island in the middle of a field. This is going to invite other uses besides skateboarding."

Skatepark Systems

Skatepark systems are compromised of three essential elements:

1.) Skate spots (or skate dots)

2.) Skate paths

3.) Skateparks

Sanctioned skatepark systems add skateparks as centralized landmarks featuring, but not limited to, challenges that cannot be experienced elsewhere within the system. What distinguishes a successful skatepark from those discussed earlier is the degree it provides a spectrum of challenges not limited to one genre of skateboarding.

To define skate spots and skate paths, it is helpful to understand the very nature of contemporary skateboarding. It has been said that skaters are like modern "hunters and gathers," utilizing their skateboards as transportation as they seek challenges presented in the urban environment. Skateboarders are, on average, 14 years old. A majority of them have been skating for less than 5 years, so the age range of your everyday skateboarders is between the ages of 9 and 17.

As skateboarders increase in proficiency, they expand the geographical area they cover in their efforts to seek, identify and eventually master challenges within their locale. The skateboard is used as transportation until a spot is identified, and then the activity seamlessly becomes a different activity altogether: what was termed 20 years ago "freestyle skateboarding" has today become mainstream. A skate spot or skate dot is a venue whose very design lends itself to this "freestyle" form style of skateboarding.

"Skate dots are integrated skateable terrain, 1,500 square-feet in size," says Susan Friedman, of Seattle Parks and Recreation. Acknowledging an acceptance curve on the part of citizens regarding this novel approach, she says that her community started "thinking of them as 'additional playground elements' so the idea isn't as scary, because that's what they really are: small features for kids to play on."

Skate dots and skate spots are an integral part of Seattle's vision for a comprehensive skatepark system, which includes plans for a network of skate alternatives, from skate dots all the way to 30,000 square-foot "regional" skateparks.

Seattle's plans for a skatepark system leverages experience gained by neighboring city Portland, Ore., whose city council approved in July, 2005, a plan for 19 skateparks. Ranging in size from neighborhood skate spots less than 10,000 square-feet, up to 30,000 square-foot regional facilities, Portland's system is designed to meet the basic needs of the city's estimated 20,000 skateboarders. The plan also includes a global modification of traffic laws that legalizes skateboarding on all sidewalks and streets outside the downtown retail core, and even then, skateboarders are only precluded from skating on the sidewalks; it is legal to use the streets for transportation.

In Fort Collins, Colo., multi-use pads and a trail system have been employed to provide options for skateboarders seeking challenges in their neighborhood, and on their way to the two existing (and four total) district skateparks, including a the skateboarding world's first true "skate plaza."

"Multi-use concrete pads, 6,400 square-feet in size, are used to provide variety for parks we plan to provide every square mile of Fort Collins. Fifty percent for basketball, the other end for roller hockey, and a 12-inch tall concrete bench to separate the two designed for skateboarder use" describes Craig Foreman, manager of Park Planning and Development. Skateboarders are encouraged to use an expansive and growing trail system connecting regional parks with access to many multi-use concrete pads.

The city of Tacoma, Wash., demonstrated noteworthy cost savings by integrating skaters with other users within a traditional park setting. At Thea's Park, next to Puget Sound and adjacent to downtown Tacoma, skateboarders removed nearly 200 skate stoppers and built a "manual pad" capped with high-quality granite for less than $3,000, transforming a public space that was rife with graffiti and drug deals into a park where skaters mingle with strollers.

Endorsed by Tacoma Parks and Recreation, this overturns an action originally intended to preclude skaters from using a park, because it was incorrectly assumed that skateboarders were responsible for the vandalism. "Thea's Park, or 'the Sledges' as skaters call it, is regularly sessioned by 40-50 concurrent skaters who would have normally skated the downtown shopping district," reports Peter Whitley, a local skateboard advocate who sits upon Tacoma's citizen advisory board in the design of this city's skatepark system.

What about Skateparks?

As indicated, planners of the modern skatepark system still believe there is room for skateparks; they remain centralized meeting places for the community's skateboarders. As Fort Collins' Foreman says, "Skate spots are the small neighborhood elementary schools of the skatepark system, and skateparks are the greater area high schools."

However, today's well-implemented skateparks aren't merely larger versions of that which is found in the neighborhood skate spot. Communities are ensuring that terrain diversity exists, and skatepark design decisions are made in the richer context of a skatepark system.

If skateparks are intended to serve as centralized landmarks, attracting and retaining a community's skateboarders, what mix of skatepark terrain is acceptable? While skatepark design is a creative process and thus difficult to reduce into "cook-book" terms, SPS strongly recommends a 60/40 split between street and transition.

That means that 60 percent is allocated to the interests and needs of your community's largest skateboard user group (street skaters,) and 40 percent toward challenges that may not exist within the streets and thus, if designed properly, will provide long-term retention value as a recreational amenity.

Portland's plans for a 19-skatepark system includes rich visions for street-oriented elements to serve its community of street skaters, but has ensured the more centralized skateparks contain street-oriented elements that cannot be found elsewhere, with the intent to draw and retain skaters within the safe and legal context of a skatepark.

Specifically, Glenhaven Skatepark, intended to serve as the centralized recreational destination for a large number of skaters in outer southeast and northeast Portland, boasts what's been described as a "corridor of brick banks with embedded features." In some regions of the U.S., this may be recognized as a replica of an ordinary drainage ditch and thus a common element already frequented by skateboarders, but in Portland, this is a rarity; no such ditches exist in the entire region. The Glenhaven Skatepark gives Portland skateboarders something new.

At the introductory tier of a future skatepark system, a child is led to a multi-use community park to recreate under the watchful eyes of a parent or guardian. As a child's athletic expertise increases, they find themselves seeking challenges beyond the neighborhood park as they increasingly recreate with neighbors and friends. The fully-implemented skatepark system provides a web of options directing these aspiring athletes towards centralized locations where they can recreate with their athletic peers.

Directed to skate paths, and coaxed to skateparks through integrated skateboard terrain (aka "legalized street skating"), the community's skateboarders are finding a skatepark system being constructed under their very wheels, leveraging their current behavior, and providing incentive to recreate within sanctioned skatepark areas.

Ups and Downs 

Terrain diversity pertains to the richness of skateboarding options available to the community's skateboarders. Take a look at the three kinds of skateboard terrain:

1. Street

These are skateboard features that copy urban and industrial landscapes and has been preferred by a majority of skaters for the past 15 to 20 years. Typically defined at right angles, and not including ramps, street terrain are those items your community's law enforcement officer could probably define through experience. Stairs, railings, curbs, barriers and loading dock banks; these are objects at the basic level define street skater terrain. Skate plazas, popularized through a massive marketing campaign by a skateboard shoe company, are those skateparks that are limited to street terrain.

2. Mini transition

Any gradual transition from horizontal is considered "transitional" terrain, or "tranny" for short, and "mini tranny" are items that do not include a vertical face, and are typically smaller than six feet in height. Ramps seen in televised skateboard expositions are rudimentary examples of mini tranny.

3. Vertical transition

Similar to mini-tranny, but featuring face walls up to and sometimes exceeding vertical. In simplest terms, "vert" is provided through simple bowled replicas of the backyard swimming pool popularized in the 1970s. Today, many variations have been innovated by a new generation of skatepark designers, literally turning on-end some of these surfaces to create "cradles," "funnels," and many other objects that enable experienced skateboarders to fly through the air, performing tricks unthinkable even five years ago.

Web extra: Find out how the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has created a skatepark system.

www.nrpa.org/p&r