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Recent Articles
- “Underexposed” in the Public Eye: Amelia Brodka Interview
- 2012 Skateboarding Fatalities
- Replacing Modular Parks with Concrete
- The Skatepark Bid Process
- Sample RFP for a Skatepark Bid (Replacing a Modular Skatepark)
- Stand Up For Skateparks
- Just Say NO To Modular Skateparks
- An Interview with Ty Smith: Drop Into Skateboarding
- Putting Wenatchee on the Map!
- Skateparks $100K and Under
- Art of Board and I Ride I Recycle – The Bruce Boul Interview
- 2011 Skateboarding Fatalities
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New Stuff!
The 2011 Skatepark Tracker
Have you ever wondered how many public skateparks are out there??? Have you ever wondered how many get built in a year??? The first question is almost impossible to answer. Public skateparks started being built in the 1970′s and continued at a very slow pace through the 80′s and 90′s. Once the new millennium hit public skateparks exploded across the U.S. This explosion happened so fast…
Building Skateparks in Indian Country
Over the last couple of years we have seen an influx of public skateparks being built on Native American reservations. In fact, this is happening across the country in towns such as Tuba City, AZ; Sand Springs, OK and Pine Ridge, SD. Recently, we sat down with Lisa Fabian of the Nashoba Youth Foundation out of Poteau, OK. In the past year, Lisa has done an…
Lewiston, ID: Interview with Dan Prasil
Sometimes it takes years to get a good skatepark built in your town, and skaters are usually the ones leading the effort. SPS recently sat down with long time skater and skatepark advocate Dan Prasil. It took Dan and his crew over twelve to build a world class skatepark in their town. Check out how they did it… How long have you been skating? I’ve been…
Victoria, TX: Taking the Park Back
On Dec. 20th 2008, the City of Victoria opened a state of the art 15,000 square foot skatepark. The park features a large street area and a flow bowl, and is hailed as a destination skatepark in South Texas. Unfortunately, when the park opened it lacked common park amenities like restrooms, water fountains and shade structures. On top of that, the skatepark was poorly sited behind…
Concrete Skateparks in the Holy Land
In the last four years, four concrete skateparks have been built in Israel. That, in itself, is huge for our local scene. Even sweeter is that the parks have been contracted out to Grindline and that the most recently completed one in Kfar Saba was built by a Grindline-Dreamland cooperative effort that included Mark Hubbard, Mark Scott, Sage Bolyard, Tavita Scanlon, and Alfred Perez. The first…
Painting Murals in Skateparks
A few years ago we had A LOT of offensive, gang-looking tagging and graffiti showing up at Carolina Skatepark with the #1 target being the big bowl (likely due to it’s depth and the ability to not be seen easily from street level.) We’d heard that the “unwritten code” with graffiti artists is they will not tag each others artwork – so we thought we’d give…
Planning and Advocacy
Drop-In to Skateboarding Class-Wenatchee, WA
Ben Wixon, SPS Board Member, Co-Developer of Drop In to Skateboarding (accredited skateboard instruction program) and Author of the book- Skateboarding: Instruction, Programming and Park Design drove several hours from Portland, OR to Wenatchee, WA recently to do a presentation for K-12 Wenatchee School District PE Teachers. The presentation, put on in conjunction with Community for Wenatchee Valley Skateparks and SPS-Wen Chapter was planned to help the teachers learn the basics of…
Texas Skatepark Index
We are proud to introduce the first of our State Skatepark Indexes. The information that follows is the result of hard work, loads of phone calls, tons of emails, and dozens of tanks of gas. We trust that you will find this information helpful in your local skatepark planning. If you enjoy this report, please consider a donation of time or money to SPS. We would…
30 Reasons
There are lots of great reasons for building your next skatepark. Here are just 30 of them.
Public Meeting FAQ
The first few public meetings for new advocates are often frightening. One expects that the audience will be filled with neighbors and concerned citizens with an endless supply of challenging questions about the idea of a new skatepark. While that is sometimes true—neighbors will probably have questions—the reality is that they’re not out to crucify you. They understand why you’re there and that you mean well….
Freedom of Space
“You—skateboarders—are the leading edge of a revolution of the human being’s relation to his or her environment.” —Edmund Bacon
Skateboarding Casualties (2006)
Editor’s Note: Although this report is nearing five years old it continues to be a relevant to today’s skatepark advocate. This is powerful and tragic data; a very real reminder of what each of us face simply by doing what we love. One death is unbearably tragic. 42 deaths in 12 months is unspeakable. As skateboarders we manage risk every time we step on a board….
Design and Construction
Concrete Ledge Construction
In 2003, our city installed the first prefabricated modular skatepark in San Antonio. At the time, we were not very familiar with this equipment, but within six months the modular ledge ended up looking like this… The ledge basically crumbled due to heavy skating, and the vendor did not honor the warranty to repair the equipment. I later found out this is very common with modular…
Building a Concrete Skatepark on an Old Tennis Court
When it comes to building a public skatepark a lot of park managers begin to look at underutilized park space around the city. An old tennis court or an old basketball court can sometimes make a perfect spot to place a skatepark. The great thing about finding a location like this is the park usually has lighting, parking, restrooms, a water fountain, etc. Typically, when a…
DIY SeaTac Ledge Repair
How To: Ledge Repair When the skatepark in the City of Seatac, Washington, was opened, the designer didn’t plan for the popularity of a small ledge built into a larger pyramid structure. Over the next five years the ledge was ground down until it was rough and pebbly. With an upcoming contest, Dave Waite and Jake Weger of Tacoma contacted SPS NW Regional Director Brock McNally…
DIY Tacoma Manual Pad
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to build a manual pad for under $3,000. This project was demonstrated in Tacoma, Washington in April, 2010 and took three days of work over a two-week span. Step 1: Funding The local skatepark group approached the neighborhood council with a proposal to introduce a new skateboarding structure at an existing skatepark. Once a year the council is provided foundation…
Types of Skateparks
A group of types is known as a typology. This skatepark typology outlines different types of skateparks in the same language that park planners use to define ordinary city parks. Each type of skatepark can work alone or across a region to establish a skatepark system. Advocates will find it useful to describe skateparks according to their type more useful than simply calling any skate space…
Sample RFP for Skatepark Bids
There is no excuse for this kind of quality. The single largest barrier to creating a quality skatepark is in relying on a weak Request For Proposal (RFP) specification. It’s an easy problem to fix but too many Parks Planners and city officials simply go with what they mistakenly believe will provide the least expensive facility that will meet the minimum requirements of the skateboarding community….