If your city doesn't do their homework before designing and constructing your hometown skatepark, they will eat your skateboard for lunch!  In other words, help them to understand the importance of building a skatepark.  It is not just a curved sidewalk.  It takes specialized talented folks to build a skatepark right.

Design and Construction tips for Cities planning to build a skatepark.

Dear City Planners, Skatepark Designers, Landscape Architects, Mayors, Parks and Recreation Departments, etc,

I want to stress the importance of the design AND the construction of your skatepark. I have seen designers architect beautiful skatepark designs only to have the concrete subcontractor pour the transitions very poorly to the point where the money spent on the park is basically worthless! This is very important!!! Also, a major drawback in most skatepark designs is the lack of separate functional areas for the riders. There should be a beginner zone, an intermediate zone (which I consider most parks today to be), a street course zone, and an advanced pool or bowl zone. 

Separate Areas for Different Skill Levels

It is also important to create an environment for your skatepark to be family oriented and a supportive environment for kids. Do not place the park out of the way in the back corner which promotes the darker side of skateboarding onto our kids. This should be a mainstream area with separate areas for each skill level and benches, burms, grass, drinking fountains, and trees for the parents to supervise their kids and even have birthday parties at.

You can email me or see my website. Email doug@skateparkcentral and look at www.skateparkcentral.com. I would be willing to provide my over 27 years of skateboarding experience to you. Please just ask me. My website's cause is to create useful, quality skateparks for kids that are supportive of the sport and safe to ride. See www.skatenorcal.com for a listing and rating of skateparks in California and beyond to read about what make a park good or bad.

Best regards,

Doug

Skatepark QUALITY in the Tri-Valley

The Problem with Northern California Skateparks Being Built Today is the Quality and Confined Design.

    It is great that after 15 years of our youth lobbying to get skateparks built in our local cities, they are finally starting to get support.  I can remember back in 1983 going to a Martinez City Council meeting to garner support for a public skatepark where skaters could go to skate and not get a ticket.  Well, the skateparks are showing up finally (don't get me wrong, I am thankful) but the results we are seeing from our local governments are disappointing. 

What we need are skateparks like the ones that were around in the late '70's and early 80's.  They had varying degrees of difficulty for the beginner as well as advanced and each bowl or section was seperate. This made it easy to find a section to learn in and each person can take a turn.  The parks today are so small and confined that they are fast becoming dangerous as they gain popularity.  Collisions in the single section bowls built today are unacceptable. Support and be active in your local city to get QUALITY skateparks built. 

    The skateboarding population is huge and growing.  Skaters deserve to have the facilities that softball, basketball, soccer, and tennis already receive!  There is a large population of participants as evidenced by the traffic at the skateparks currently.   

Sincerely,

Doug