Public Skatepark Design and Construction - Mostly Bad

I already talked a bit about this in another post on the Skate Plaza concept, but I feel it needs a little more attention.

There are literally hundreds of public skateparks being constructed around the country, and the sad fact is that most of them will be under-utilized and will not fulfill one of their primary goals of giving skaters a viable alternative to destroying public and private property. The two reasons public skateparks are failures are design and construction.

How Most Skateparks are Designed Wrong. I was recently in a meeting with some officers from a city here in Utah about something that had nothing to do with skateboarding. As we were engaging in some friendly chit-chat I asked “Does your city have a public skatepark?”

“Yes we do. It’s a real good one.” he responded.

“That’s great, did you know that most public skateparks aren’t built right?” I rejoined.

“Oh, this one is a real good one.” He said.

Not wanting to get into an argument over a skatepark I haven’t seen I dropped it there, even though I was willing to bet that the skatepark that he thought was “a real good one” is probably a piece of junk and a waste of $200,000 or however much it cost. Even if it’s not junk, it’s still probably not living up to its purpose.

So I looked around and found some photos of the skatepark online.

Although the photos are small and I only found two, there are some things I can already see wrong with this park. One is bowls. “What’s wrong with bowls?” you might ask. “Isn’t that what the kids want?”

The answers is that there’s nothing wrong with them per se, but no, that’s not what the kids want. Here’s the problem. If you’re a city employee or representative and are somehow involved in the design and construction of a public skatepark, ask yourself why you’re building a public skatepark at all. I would guess that at least one reason is to get the kids off the streets where they’re damaging public and private property, right?

Now ask yourself what these kids are causing damage to. It’s usually ledges, handrails, benches, planters, etc. So wouldn’t the logical thing be to build skateparks that recreate what is being damaged, but put those obstacles in a special area designated for skateboarding? Apparently logic doesn’t make it very far in city planning meetings, because the majority of public skateparks feature large bowls and lots of other transitions–items that most skateboarders have never skated and which are the most unused parts of public skateparks.

But the bad design isn’t limited to just putting the wrong obstacles in skateparks. It’s also about how the obstacles that are put in parks, whether they are good obstacles to have there or not, are designed wrong in and of themselves.

I’ve skated parks where a pyramid which should have smooth, flat sides has sides that are actually convex, meaning the bow outwards, making it nearly impossible to skate. I’ve skated in parks where it’s obvious that the person designing the park saw a photo or video of something and tried to recreate it but got the scale wrong, so that something that would only be skate worthy if it were three feet tall is instead six inches tall and completely useless. And then there’s the actual construction of these parks…

How Most Skateparks Are Built Wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I like big bowls in public skateparks. I think they’re great, even if they only serve a minority of the skateboarding population. But if you’re going to build a bowl in your city’s public skatepark, at least get a company to build it that’s going to build it the right way.

If you’re building a park for BMX bikers you can afford to have slightly lumpy surfaces, because their wheels are large and the tires are inflatable and therefore small bumps are hardly felt or noticed. However, when someone is riding a skateboard with small, hard wheels over the same surface every small bump or imperfection is very noticeable and can throw a person off balance, and these imperfections therefore become safety hazards and liabilities for the city. How would your city like to be socked with a lawsuit because they hired a construction company that didn’t employ actual skateboarders and therefore they built the skatepark in a way that wasn’t safe for skateboarding?

Sometimes skateparks are built with metal edges on bowls, ledges, and such for the purpose of grinding on. Sometimes the metal that is used is too soft, which means when the metal of a skateboard trucks lands on it the truck digs in and stops, rather than sliding along the edge. Another safety hazard, and another reason skateboarders will not use the park.

Overall design is the bigger issue, rather than construction, but construction is something to be closely examined.

Solutions. I’m not just complaining, I’m offering some solutions as well. They’re simple, and probably most cost-effective as well.

1. Only hire companies that are owned and run by skateboarders to build skateparks. If your city does nothing else but follow this rule, you’ll be far ahead. Trust me, just because a company has built several other skateparks doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. They may have built all those skateparks wrong. An endorsement or testimonial by the city is not a real endorsement. The only true endorsement should come from an experienced skateboarder who can tell whether a park was designed and built correctly.

2. Build skateparks that mimic the public and/or private property you are trying to protect. Not only will this ensure that your skatepark is used and keeps kids off the streets, it is probably more affordable. A flat piece of cement with some ledges, stairs, and handrails would be used more than a skatepark with lots of fancy bowls and would also cost less.

3. Watch some recent skateboard videos. If you’re not sure what skateboarders are skating videos should give you an idea. But also bear in mind that most skateboarders are not on the same level as the professionals. A professional can do a trick on a 20-stair handrail but for most kids a 5-7 stair handrail is going to serve them better.

4. Get a Skate Plaza. It’s the safest and most cost-effective way to ensure you’re building the right kind of skatepark for your city. And since the Skate Plaza concept is so new right now, if you built one in your city it would attract worldwide attention and publicity. And if you really did it right you might even be able to attract an X-Games event like Philadelphia did with Love Park, which brought in $80 million in revenue for the city. Of course then, like idiots, they closed Love Park to skateboarding and forced the X-Games elsewhere. After all, what do they need with $80M?

5. Hire a consultant or a few. Admit it, what do you know about building a skatepark? Go out and hire someone who is going to choose the right company to design it, the right company to build it, and let them come to the city with proposals and be the person who makes sure it happens the right way. Just make sure that consultant is an active skateboarder who understands what kids are going to want and use.