Progress in South-West Ontario

Progress in Elmira

Afterwards I went to a design workshop in Kitchener. The concepts for the park are great and are still up for revisions but 2 concepts were presented.  There was a clear divide among the participants as to who wanted more street vs. who wanted more bowl.  

 Concept #2 has a snake run and a bunch of quarters.

 Concept #1 has a bowl and a nice street section.

Also scoped the design for Guelph's new park.

Bad Crete

Bad 'Crete!

Skateparks can be fabulous works of sculptural concrete.  They can also be absolute, nearly permanent disasters.

In a previous article, I pointed the issues with pre-fabricated skatepark ramps. In this article I'll present some examples of terrible concrete skateparks.  Skateparks should be designed & built by specialists in this field. The following examples were not.

Orillia

The park in Orillia, ON claims to have a 3 foot snake run with one foot of vert. Not only is this a terrible idea, the execution is equally bad. 

 The flat bottom has bike tire treads in the concrete.

 The quarter pipe is kinked with no transition and the coping sits on top of the roll out. (Edit - coping removed.)

Midland

 This Poured in Place (PIP) bowl in Midland has coping that sits flush with the riding surface making it difficult to lock into tricks. Canadian Ramp Company has a pretty poor record with their PIP parks.  Check out more HERE.

A poorly designed gap feature. Tyendinaga, ON. Another CRC project.

 A hubba that drops into a bowl is never a good idea. Mt Forest, ON.

The following examples were all designed by Victor Ford & Associates, a landscape architecture firm that designed some skateparks in the late 90's and early 2000's. Many of their parks have similar features ( see HERE). They have, thankfully, exited the skatepark industry but many of their projects remain.

 Stairs in a skatepark setting are used for tricks. Riding up a ramp to the stairs makes doing tricks difficult. Maple Skatepark, Burlington.

 Inappropriately large pyramid with a drop off one side. Grimsby, ON

 Pickering, Ontario's park features a 1 foot quarter with 3 inches of vert and a wading pool with a sewer grate in it.

 Bowmanville's park has several features present in the Pickering park like a mini-ramp with no coping, safety rails on the top and no deck on one side.

 It also narrows to less than 5 feet causing a hazard for users.

Worthington? More like Worth-less, amirite?

This 'skate spot' in Brampton is part of a court that has a basketball net and can be flooded in the winter for skating. I had posted 'Here's my theory with this piece of suck. A developer bid on the tender for the park. The tender included 'a skateboard park' and the other park amenities. Rather than sub-contract the skatepark to a qualified firm or buy the pre-fab that's at all the other Brampton parks, they decided to do it themselves. Hence, this.' This theory was basically confirmed by City Staff.

The Port Lambton skatepark was designed by a well meaning local who saw the need for a skatepark.

Tamworth? Tam-worthless, amirite? I know it's the same joke, I don't care.

Tamworth should not have happened. Click HERE to see all the issues.  Locals fundraised and obtained grants and were left with a park I was warned to 'skate it before winter'.

Here are some additional resources.

Check out Their Best & Worst - I created a resume for every company that builds skateparks in Ontario.

You can also check out Deja Vu SK8. It features skatepark look-alikes that I've found and sadly, the majority of them kinda suck. 

November days.

Managed to get out on my day off.
Went to Village Green park in Vaughan to skate it and get some more photos.

 This tiny flat doesn't allow you to get enough speed to make the step-up.

 That gap is filled with foam.

The new Sonoma Heights Park, by New Line, is sweet.

 Cool little ledge/wedge/manny pad.

 Bank to ledge.

 Park integration.

Later, I got a tour of the Skate Elmira build site.

 Pool! It's so smooth.