Longboard Park Planning

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Premium Member Comment by Jonny Hurn on October 1, 2011 at 21:29

Yeah I was out there today, looks like a good spot, I dont supose anyone knows anything about track building?

 

ASRA Admin Comment by Bugs on September 26, 2011 at 21:58

It's been mentioned before, but I reckon Mt Steele: http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=212234598532018412069.000451...

is a good location. It's only a small hill, and would probably be good for just a few medium speed hairpins, but it's a central location, it has a history of being used for sport (grass skiing and grass boarding), and it hasn't been used for anything much in the last 15 years.

It could be a good place to start to establish the concept. And I'm sure if it was built it would be busy and successful.

Premium Member Comment by Jonny Hurn on September 26, 2011 at 21:39

Having our own dedicated park, is a big steep in the development of our sport. I think we need some location options first. If we know what we want we can aproach real estate agents to see if they have or know of anything suitable Also if we can get some respectable members of society aka not students, we can aproach councils with these ideas, See if they know of locations or are keen to help at all, I dont really know anything about how it all works over here, If I wanted to meet with the council back home I could just ring up the office and ask. Righ now we need people to help with direction, Im way out of my depth here. I just want to see it happen.

Comment by Superdry on September 26, 2011 at 17:46

Nice work Jonny. I've just come back from a few days in Byron - the whole frickin town is skating - from Penny's to Longboards - I was amazed. Go check out Manly where I live, and again - the age is from 2 to 52 everyone is pushing around.

My point is - we are at a boom time in skating - both from a participation and profile angle.

This also means there is an older demographic that if you can reach can make these sort of infrastructure projects happen. We just need to get a few people behind the push ...so to speak. 

 

Anyway thats my 2 cents worth for now - I'll watch this group and participate however I can.  One way to get some attention would be an an outlaw down Oxford from Taylor Square to the Opera House - on a saturday lunchtime - nude. Just sayin...

 

 

Comment by Timothy Shu on September 26, 2011 at 17:37

Also, you're pretty silly if you think the land size is not that big. A single lane road is about 5m wide including shoulders. An 800x5m or 400m^2 piece of land is about the size of a medium warehouse. That is a BIG block of land.

Comment by Timothy Shu on September 26, 2011 at 17:31

Councils make walkways for pedestrians because walking is the principle method of getting between two places. Cyclists just so happen to be able to use walkways as well. But to build a dedicated skate park is a different issue.

I agree that pump station is the ideal case of a nice skate session, but the road isn't there for us to skate, the primary reason for the road is to service the pump. Getting a road built just for us to skate is sort of a different concept, it's not justifiable to council for an expensive piece of infrastructure which needs to be built and maintained to be made just for us to have fun.

Besides, places like pump already exist, is there a need to pay for others when we could just do a little more exploring?

Comment by Albin Fajardo on September 26, 2011 at 17:17

I think the first step is finding the spot you want!! one with a hill, and good run off, some flat land,  just to keep the place safe for all levels of boarding, This narrows down our possibilities to only a few... From their I suggest we research about the council policy for land ownership, what can be built, etc. This ensures we keep everything within the zoning rules...

Next is to develop the message, we want to strengthen the claim that longboarding, skating, etc. is truly an alternative means transport, rather than simply a phase/toy thing... I believe councils develop parks, pathways and cycleways for runners and cyclists because they think that these are more serious and less seasonal modes of recreation and transport. Thus if create a message that places skaters under a similar light to cyclists, we would have headway in pushing for a park!

Premium Member Comment by Jonny Hurn on September 26, 2011 at 13:45

Paying for it isnt as hard as you would think you just need to raise some cash, get some sponsorship from longboarding companies and if you can, convince the council to chip some in too, its how they get skate parks built. The actual land size doesn't need to be that big, Pumpy is only 800m long and its nearly a perfect example of ideal situation.

Convincing the Council isn't all about numbers its all aobut voice, Were lucky as a community to have a hugely diverse group. Ive skated with people from age 13 to 50. So lets use that were not just kids on skateboards. We can have the power if we want it. We are a big enough community and we are competitive on the world stage in a new a rapidly growing sport. All were asking the council for is a park for our sport. I appreciate the thought man and the reality check I just think its possible.

 

Comment by Timothy Shu on September 26, 2011 at 12:52

Well, first issue is always money and power.

Who is going to pay for it and can you convince your council to build it?

A counci is not going to pay for a park that only serves one group of people, parks are meant to be used by everyone.
We're sure as he'll not going to pay for it, let's say ASRA has 5000 members, and we need around 500k to purchase the land (unlikely because parks are huge), every one of us needs to pitch in 2 grand which is totally unfair for people who will never use the park and nobody wants to do that anyway.
No sponsor would pay for it, why would rayne or loaded blow 500k on some land in Australia, they could give us each 30 sets of wheels for that much money.

Second issue, council approval. Assuming you have the money, the council may still have reason to block development, long boarders are still just skateboarders to regular people, they may be unhappy for their area to become the Mecca of long boarding in australia.

In my opininon, the best way for you to get this done is to run for council yourself and have your engineering approvals team staffed with engineers and architects who are long boarders and have all your new developments made to be friendly for skating around. You'll have to justify that the design is good for the traffic patterns in the area or that the park layouts are architecturally sound.

Or, get yourself into an engineering design firm and hope your company gets a job from the RTA and get yourself high enough in the company to be in charge of pedestrian access design and start making winding footpaths down slopes.

Premium Member Comment by Jonny Hurn on September 26, 2011 at 12:03

This is going to be one hell of a task, but it’s far from impossible.
I don’t know where exactly to begin but some location parameters would be good to start with.
So:
Location? What do we need and where can we find it?
There were some good ideas in the thread about this, so roughly we need cheap land with an existing road of some sort. We can always re seal it. Ideally we would design from scratch but that is an expensive option.

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