The City of Toronto is planning a skate dot at Bartley Park in the Eglinton and Vic Park area. It's not too far from a cookie factory and the park is using some of the famous cookies as texture and colour references.
The skate dot concepts, as it stands now, are a nearly 1m tall QP or a Ledge Spot or a hybrid of the two.
The biggest issue I notice is with the Ledge concept where users would have to cut in on quite a sharp angle and the ledge ends in the lawn. I also think ~1m is too tall for the space and cutting it down to 60-76cm (24-30inches- ARC's small QP is 24in) would work better.
The Survey uses 2 of my photos as references for Skate Dots so I feel entitled to get involved for the good of all mankind.
So again I write
Hello City of Toronto Staff
I'm writing in regards to the proposed skate dot at Bartley Park. I have been to many skateparks and feel a few modifications to the current concepts will make the dot more user friendly especially for beginners. Given the space provided, a 900mm quarter pipe is quite tall. It will be difficult to gain speed on the approach and dropping in will create enough speed to put users into the lawn. The hugely popular Quarter Pipe at Audley Recreation Centre in Ajax is 60cm tall.
Additionally, the higher the quarter is, the more of a berm need to be behind it. It can be difficult to grow grass on hilly features around skate obstacles due to frequent foot and wheeled traffic. One way to combat these bald patches is to create faux stone finishes on the steepest areas.
The ledge concept has issues in the way users would approach and exit the obstacle. The ledge ending at the lawn is not favourable as it upgrades a beginner feature to an expert feature. Georgetown recently added a small ledge and mistakenly off-set it into the grass. They now plan on extending the flats to increase usability.
I grew up in East York and I love the idea of including references to the local Cookie Factory and those could extend into the skate dot. Working with Concept C, I would suggest a smaller quarter pipe with brick stamped concrete in a pattern that references the Peek Freans Cookie Outlet storefront.
I have included some additional references of stamped concrete used in skateparks as well as another Ledge based skate dot.
Brick stamped quarter pipe with ledge.
Garden City Skate Dot in BC.Lastly, a skate dot could also look like a regular park feature or piece of art as is the case with Ray St Park in Markham or this stylized bench I spotted on my travels.
Ray St Park
Thank you for your work on this project. I have written several articles on small skateparks on my blog and have a vast collection of photos of skate obstacles that I use for skatepark advocacy. In fact, 2 of the 3 skate dot references in the survey are my photos.
Happens all the time.
Scott
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