Let ‘em ride
An open letter to all who skatepark
As an expert in the world of skateparks, my goal is to increase accessibility, support sustainability, promote inclusion, and minimize user conflict by focusing on mindful skatepark design and improving the social infrastructure around them.
The most common issues surrounding accessibility and sustainability at public skateparks are misinformation about wear, discrimination against user groups, and design.
Skateparks themselves are often discriminated against and aren't treated with the same respect as other amenities in public parks. A municipality would never build a splash park, then neglect to maintain it for 20 years. Unfortunately, this happens to public skateparks far too often. Regular maintenance of a concrete skatepark is minimal, especially if we ensure there is metal plate on all grindable surfaces and forgo less sustainable material choices such as pool coping. Often the annual maintenance costs of a concrete skatepark are comparable to maintaining the same area if it were only grass regularly mowed.
Let’s begin with misinformation about wear. Different user groups cause different types of wear. Beginner vs. experienced rider plays a more significant role than what the user is riding. Banning beginners because of disproportionate wear sounds absurd. So why ban bikes? There is an institutionalized and systemic bias against bikes. It is a myth that bikes cause more wear or damage than other users.
Well-designed skateparks are gravity-propelled. The difference in speed between the average skater and average biker is smaller than the difference in speed between a beginner and an experienced rider. What about weight? The additional 25lbs of bike is minimal when put in the full spectrum of body weights across different users. Adults weigh a lot more than children.
Nearly all bicycle components that contact the riding and grindable surfaces have transitioned to plastics. Upon both impact and while grinding, skateboards exert more force per square inch than bikes due to a smaller contact patch. Nearly all wear and damage can be mitigated through mindful design.
Even if you suppose disproportionate wear from user groups, it is unfair at best and discrimination at worst to ban particular user groups. This situation not like someone playing football on a baseball field. Skateboarders, BMX riders, scooters, and inline skaters all ride the same obstacles. The diversity of use within each discipline is just as broad as the differences between them. These sports are more alike than unalike.
Far too often, skateparks have, and do not enforce helmet policies. In many cases, one user group (often bikes) will be kicked out of a public skatepark for breaking the rules while another user group (not wearing helmets) is allowed to stay. We cannot pick and choose which rules we wish to enforce. It is hypocritical to do so. This is yet again discrimination and unacceptable.
Modern skatepark build practices have come a long way, but unfortunately the design has not kept up. A great skatepark is not just a bunch of fun obstacles selected at random. We still lack mindful design that accounts for all user groups and considers user conflict holistically. Good design considers how features relate to each other and how different user groups utilize features. A skatepark’s design should be put in a broader context. What’s the population density? What do other nearby skateparks offer, if any exist? Do we want an amenity to serve the community or a designation to drive tourism? Is there careful consideration of user conflict? Often it does seem like it. Most user conflict, just like wear/damage, can be mitigated or eliminated through intelligent design practices.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room. The play-based childhood has eroded. We now live in the wake of the screen-based childhood. We were already on this trajectory, and the COVID era blew the lid off it. Jonathan Haidt covered this well in his book “The Anxious Generation,” which has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for a staggering +100 weeks. Christine Rosen’s book “The Extinction of Experience” examines how technology-mediated life erodes face-to-face communication, authentic emotion, and quality of life. I would be remiss not to mention Lenore Skenazy’s “Free-range Kids”, who saw all this coming over 15 years ago. Haidt and Skenazy are both founders of Let Grow, an organization which advocates for resilience and independence in children through free play. Skateparks are amazing at fostering just this. Skateparks are the antidote we need. There is study after study coming out telling us what we already know: excessive screen use is terrible for our children. It causes physical changes in the brain and makes us and our children less happy and less satisfied with life. I firmly believe that in the future we will look back at a toddler with an iPad the same way we would look at a child smoking a cigarette today. Frankly, we are not in a place to argue over bikes and/or scooters in skateparks. We need less screen time and more embodied experiences. We all need fresh air in our lungs, sun on our skin, and sweat on our brows, especially our children. Let's ensure action sports are accessible and sustainable for the whole family and for the future.
-Dave Raffa