Calgary maps out strategy for more skateboard parks
City staff will forge ahead with developing a skateboarding strategy because facilities for the sport have fallen well behind demand.
Officials will have almost a year to complete the plan, with a recent report suggesting the number of skateboarding enthusiasts in the city numbers in the tens of thousands.
Right now, there are just three skate parks in Calgary, a far cry from the nine — including two indoor facilities — in Edmonton.
The effort to develop a strategy is good news to one skateboarder. Trevor Morgan, with the Calgary Association of Skateboarding Enthusiasts, envisions regional skate park hubs in the city, with smaller parks scattered around.
“These youth just want to be active, that’s the bottom line,” he said. “And if we give them the right venue to do that, and integrate it in the right way, and make sure the public understands it, then you get a really successful space where youth interact with everyone else.”
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Agreed. A recent trip to Arizona has enlightened my perception of skatepark placement. The idea of a singular paramount inner city skateboarding hub is not a terrible idea, but an unfortunate burden on the public, as well as an antagonizing commute for the majority of Calgary’s skateboarding community which live elsewhere.
Fountain Hills’ Desert Vista park has a perfect design which is incorporated in the communities sports complex. The park consumates minimal space and efficiently provides skaters with a vast array of recreation.
http://www.phoenixpowersearch.com/2010/12/fountain-hills-az-skate-park/#
In my own words, this park is small yet fucking amazing, yielding endless oppurtunites to transition skaters as well as street skaters.
Surrounded by soccer fields, barbecue pits and baseball diamonds, families stop by to either drop their children off to skate or marvel at local skaters enjoying the communitiy’s facilities.
Amounting to the total size of a gymnasium, I could EASILY envision parks like this to be scattered amongst Calgary’s ever abundant greenspace dominated by soccer fields.
Being a Northwest local, I would deem Crowfoot’s vast YMCA fields as an ideal skatepark location. Assuredly our fine city contains numerous other locations where a small skateboard facility would administer to a growing skateboard community.