The City is creating preliminary and detailed design plans for skate and bike parks. The City has not yet approved funds for construction. The parks will be built in the future when funds are available. Until then, the project team wants to design parks that will be popular with park users, and have the plans ready to go when funding is approved.
Online Engagement Opportunities
To collect user opinions on designs for the skate and bike parks, the City is hosting online engagement opportunities from December 1 – 14, 2020.
To provide feedback, please attend 1 or both of the online learning sessions then complete the online survey, which is available from December 2-14, 2020.
Skate Park Online learning session December 2, 2020 | 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Bike Park Online learning session December 3, 2020 | 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Online survey Available December 2 – 14, 2020
Register to attend the learning session(s) relevant to you on the Parks & Recreation project webpage after which you can provide your opinions in the survey.
The feedback that the City receives will be used along with other factors, to create the final design for bike and skateparks as part of the Glengarry District Park Renewal.
Please share this information with friends and others who would use either park
Skateparktour.ca is excited to announce a brand new partnership with Canada Skateboard!! We will work together to include ALL Canadian skateparks on Skateparktour.ca! Canada Skateboard and Skateparktour realize how useful a complete skatepark directory will be and are working together to make it happen!
This partnership will be good for everyone who uses Canadian skateparks, not only skateboarders. If you skate, BMX, scooter, inline skate, roller skate, or unicycle you can use Skateparktour.ca to find skateparks, and you can submit skateparks to be added. The more skateparks on the list, the more we all benefit.
Whiterock BC Skatepark
We need EVERYONE who uses skateparks to tell us about skateparks missing from Skateparktour.ca! We want EVERY skatepark, large, small, indoor or outdoor. Use our easy to complete form to submit a skatepark. You can submit as many parks as you can visit, there is no limit!
To help get the wheels rolling about this project, Canada Skateboard is offering prizes for contributions made before August 31st! Every valid skatepark submission gives you a chance to win one of three prizes. You could win a Canada Skateboard coffee book, a Canada Skateboard deck or a Canada Skateboard Hydroflask.
So, let the skatepark blizzard begin! If your skatepark is not already on skateparktour.ca, submit it today!!!
Here is the skatepark that the local skater referred to
I was at a small town skatepark recently, taking virtual tour photos. A local skater, probably 14 or 15 years old came by for a session just as I finished taking photos. I gave him a sticker and told him what my photos were for. I also let him know about Skateparktour.ca because not everyone knows about it yet!
He commented that his town needs a new skatepark because the current one has no bowl. He’s right, the current park in his town is very limited. It has no elevated components to gain speed. It also lacks a variety of features such as stairs, up/down rails, hubbas, gaps banks, or transition features.
I responded that “it was time to start working on getting a new park”, and wished him a good session while I loaded gear in the car. It hit me as I drove away that what I said was not very helpful or motivational. I wished that I had made these 4 points with him:
Most skateparks exist because some people worked hard advocating for it, and persisted for years in some cases
Some skatepark efforts took years of advocacy, fundraising, and planning to get amazing skateparks built. Some examples include:
The Rossland skatepark.
The Rossland Skatepark, Rossland BC. The Rossland Skatepark Association was formed in 1996 to advocate for the skatepark which was recently opened (2017 or2018?). The RSA put in about 24 years of dogged persistence and advocacy to get a skatepark for Rossland, a town of about 4000.
SLP Skatepark, Lethbridge AB The Lethbridge Skateboard Association fought hard through much adversity to get Letbridge’s first modern skatepark built, now they have 2 more!
Lots Of Skateparks exist because of advocacy by young people – Go ahead, become an advocate in your town!
Here are three examples of skateparks built with youth getting the wheels rolling, there are many more
Delburne Skatepark
Legacy Skatepark, Langdon AB Langdon youth got huge support from their local FCSS. They helped the young people organize and approach the Council and the provincial government for funding.
Delburne Skatepark Delburne AB When Delburne skaters spoke up about the need for a skatepark their school got behind them, then the Delburne Village Council, local businesses, and members of the community supported the project as well. Delburne now has a skatepark that is the envy of many much larger towns!
Lacombe Skatepark, Lacombe AB Similar to Langdon, one of the first supporters when youth spoke up was the local FCSS. A skatepark committee made up of youth and adults who supported the skatepark process as passionately as the youth raised they money and got a very fun skatepark built in Lacombe..
Find allies, others who want a new skatepark too, including:
Other youth, including skaters, BMX’ers, scooter riders. Taxpayer money will pay for most of the skatepark cost so everyone will get to use the skatepark and every user group would help make it happen!
A youth-focused organization that may be able to support your cause, for example, the Boys & Girls Club, FCSS, teachers, or your school
Supporters on your local council and local business people
You are not on your own, there are resources you can access!
Schools and skateparks don’t usually mix. Schools offer the usual sports like volleyball, basketball, and badminton while their skaters, BMX’ers, and scooter riders leave the school to do what they enjoy. This past June, Delburne Centralized School showed for the second straight year, that schools CAN use skateparks for helping educate their students. The success of their Ghost Ryders Invitational Skatepark Competition is a challenge to schools to include their action sports enthusiasts in school activities as well!
Take a look at the Delburne Skatepark where the Ghost Ryder Invitational was held. An impressive skatepark for a small town, that shows what can be done when a community gets behind their youth!
Delburne Skatepark, Home of the Ghost Ryder Invitational Skatepark Competition
Once last summer when an upcoming event posted by a Calgary BMX shop was shared on the Skateparktour.ca FaceBook page, it prompted this response from one skater:
“Get your shit together skatepark tour. Stop promoting BMX at skateparks. If that’s what you want to promote, at least do skateboarders a courtesy and change your name to parktour.ca”
This is not the first time that a skateboarder has made an issue of BMX being included on Skateparktour.ca. The relationship between skaters and BMX’ers is sometimes “strained” so the comments are not really a surprise. The attempt to get the comment poster to take a wider view about BMX’ers in skateparks failed. Apparently I am “losing it” according to the poster.
It’s true that skateparks originated because of skateboarding. Back in the day when the first skateparks were being built, BMX and mountain bikes had not been developed yet. Today though, some skaters still hang on to the belief that skateparks are for skateboards and that’s all. They see BMX’ers as invaders in “their” skatepark. They are called “skateparks” after all, aren’t they? While it’s not unusual to hear bike riders or skaters complaining about each other, sometimes with justification, in most places the groups have learned to co-exist peacefully and even be friends.
The whole issue did raise a good question though, about how many bikes, and people riding other things that are not skateboards, use skateparks? Are skateboarders still in the majority? How big is BMX in skateparks? And what about scooters? They too seem to be a growing user group in some places. In the summer of 2012 Skateparktour.ca set out to find answers to these questions this study is the result. Check out the infographic below for a summary of the results.
