Mike Hines just wanted someone from Tucson’s City Hall to listen to
what he has to say, and not make him feel like a punk kid who doesn’t
know better.
The reality is that Hines is hardly a punk: He’s 28, employed and
married with a 16-month-old son. He also happens to be a lifelong rider
of BMX (bicycle motocross) bikes.
For the past year, Hines and his friends have been working to
convince the city to allow BMX riders at the new skateboard park at
Santa Rita Park. (See “Bike Paradise,” Jan. 29.) Their main goal is to
find a city facility that can safely accommodate the growing number of
kids on BMX who take to the streets, because there’s nowhere else to
ride.
Before last week, Hines had directed his appeals to the Parks and
Recreation Department, but says he felt largely ignored, even after he
organized a protest on Sunday, June 28, that brought more than 100 BMX
riders to Santa Rita Park, at 22nd Street and Third Avenue.
But after last week, Hines feels people may finally be listening.
Hines took his appeal to the Tuesday, July 7, City Council meeting,
accompanied by Scott Laos, father of Kory Laos, who was killed after
being struck by a car two days before his 15th birthday while riding
his BMX with friends near the UA in May 2007.
“I think it went well. The reception seemed positive,” Hines says
about the City Council meeting.
Earlier that day, Hines also attended a Pima County Board of
Supervisors meeting to support Laos, who asked the board to name a
future county skate park after his son. The board unanimously approved
of the idea.
For the last year, while Hines has been working to get the city to
allow BMX at city skate parks, Laos has worked with county officials to
earmark bond funding and find a location for a BMX park to honor the
memory of his son.
The county donated land within the Flowing Wells District Park, at
5510 N. Shannon Road, and an account was recently created with the Pima
County Parklands Foundation to accept donations for the park, which is
expected to cost $1.5 million.
“It was a good welcome. Before we even got to our part in the
agenda, we were greeted with smiles and thumbs-up,” Laos says. “When we
started talking to the county about this idea, we took the steps needed
to make sure our cause was heard by the right people. We asked them,
‘What is it going to take to make this happen? Does another child like
my little boy need to die?'”
However, the Kory Laos Memorial Freestyle BMX Bicycle Park probably
won’t open for another five to 10 years. The park is expected to
receive most of what’s needed from the county’s 2010 bond election.
However, Laos says because of the economy, he realizes the bond
election may not happen (or the bond measures could be voted down), and
he needs to continue fundraising.
In the meantime, Hines says, kids still need a place to ride, and
the city has five skate parks that could accommodate BMX—but only
if city officials are willing to make that happen.
“We need a place now. … I think Santa Rita would be perfect until
the bike park opens; two days a week would be acceptable,” Hines
says.
It looks like the city is starting to pay attention to Hines. The
day after the City Council meeting, he received a call from Assistant
City Manager Richard Miranda, asking if Hines would meet with him.
Miranda confirms that he plans to meet with Hines, but couldn’t say
yet when any changes could formally take place.
“I was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Hines. His presentation really
took me back to the original vision for the skate park,” Miranda
says.
Miranda says there are bureaucratic issues that the city needs to
deal with, such as liability issues. But then again, he adds, there are
other recreation facilities in Tucson where everyone could possibly be
hurt, such as playgrounds and basketball courts.
“We’ll be sitting down with attorneys soon, but I think Mr. Hines
had a good idea. I think we could end up with shared facilities or two
days a week, or maybe rotating that throughout the city so people have
chances to go to other areas,” Miranda says.
The philosophy of shared facilities isn’t a new idea. Ever since
construction started on the now-completed Santa Rita skate park last
year, Hines says, he’s been doing research on other parks that share
the concrete with BMX users. He discovered that Chandler built a park
just for bikes, while Mesa and Tempe allow skateboarders and bicyclists
to use its parks at the same time. Closer to Tucson, Marana’s skate
park has a day reserved just for BMX.
“But the multiple use of parks has grown across the country so much
that now, most parks are known as ‘wheel parks’ to make the use
clearer,” Hines says.
According to Parks and Recreation Director Fred Grey, the skate
park’s own designers from SITE Design Group have said the park was
designed specifically for skateboards and not for bikes.
Hines replies the city should look at other parks designed by the
California company in Oklahoma City; Henderson, Nev.; and Lake Perris,
Calif. All were designed as skateboard-only, but have been changed to
allow full access to BMX.
“In Henderson, the parents and BMXers took parks and rec to court
over this issue and won. Liability will not be an issue at the Santa
Rita Park, because we want separate days, and we are willing to remove
the pegs on our bicycles,” Hines says. “We know this works, because we
have a working example in Marana where the park was skate-only, then
changed to (allow) BMX days.”
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2009.
Actually, Lake Perris doesn’t have a skatepark designed by Site Design Group. I believe the reporter was referring to the Lake Forest Skatepark in California. When it opened, it did not allow bikes, then about a year later they allowed bikes, for 2 and then 3 days a week. Also, Santa Clarita, CA has an SDG-designed skatepark that didn’t open allowing bikes, but now does. I have a letter from Sandy Lehmann, Recreation Supervisor for
the City of Santa Clarita’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department, telling her experience in allowing bikes into the skatepark. It can be found in the “Resources” section of The Bike, Blade and Board Coalition page on my website, at http://www.psychicflyingmonkey.com/The3BCp…
Tucson needs to start allowing bikes in their skateparks NOW. Eighteen Arizona cities allow bikes in their skateparks, fifteen of which are concrete parks. SDG has designed at the very least four concrete skateparks that “were not designed for bikes” and now allow bikes with absolutely no problems. (Oklahoma City’s park was designed with bikes in mind, but has the exact same 3000 PSI concrete and no extra steel reinforcement behind the coping, just like the Santa Rita, Henderson, and Santa Clarita skateparks and for that matter almost all of SDG’s concrete skateparks) I have talked with the administrators of the Oklahoma City, Henderson, Santa Clarita and Lake Forest Skateparks numerous times, and they have said they have experienced absolutely NO PROBLEMS with bikes in their skateparks. All the perceived problems with bikes in skateparks are MYTHS and are not based in fact. They are based on a very real bias against bike riders in the skatepark designer, skatepark builder, and skateboard communities. For an expose on the “Bikes damage skateparks” myth, please read an article I posted on my website dealing with the issue at http://www.psychicflyingmonkey.com/3BC%20p…
Also, a very in-depth and well-researched discussion paper on the “bikes in skateparks” issue was written in 2005 by Landscape Architect Rodney Wojtanik for Portland, Oregon’s Parks and Recreation Department, and can be accessed in the “Resources” section of The Bike, Blade and Board Coalition page on my website, at http://www.psychicflyingmonkey.com/The3BCp…
Mayors, city councilmembers, city managers, and especially parks and recreation officials MUST DO THE PROPER RESEARCH ON THIS ISSUE. Sitting back and letting biased skatepark design and build companies dictate policy for taxpayer-funded skateparks is THE ULTIMATE IN SLOTHFULNESS AND INCOMPETENCE, and is completely UNACCEPTABLE to constituents!
Jason Ryan
President
The Bike, Blade and Board Coalition
Tempe, Arizona
We have no place to go, would it hurt anyone to let us ride Santa Rita skatepark twice a week?
I am tired of getting chased out of public and private properties by security or police because I need a place to enjoy my bmx safely and worry free.
Santa Rita is a PUBLIC park, and the skatepark was built using 100% PUBLIC funds. Need I say more?
I assure you that if bikes are allowed in it will get more use that it ever has.
When skate boards first came out skaters were doing the same thing us BMXers are doing now. Finding anything we can to ride such as public places on the streets just so we can do what we love. We risk getting hit by cars on the street, kicked out of public places, and even arrested everyday just so we can ride our bicycles for a few hours. Skate boarders used to do the same thing but now they have plenty of legal and safe skate parks all over town to skate at but BMX bikes still have no legal or safe places to ride. If bikers and skaters have the same problems why can’t we solve them with one simple answer? Letting BMX bicycles into skate parks. It would be a simple and effective solution to keep everyone safe and happy.
Justin Bovell
Local BMXer/Bicycle Shop Employee
Tucson, Arizona
people that commit crimes should be arrested and prosecuted. not kids riding bikes.
i dont want to feel like im going to get arrested next time i jump on my bike.
we need a place to ride where it is safe and gets us away from distroying public propriet… so let bmx in!
I dont think that 99.9% of the people in tucson realize the issue that we have to deal with on a daily basis. I personally wake up every morning, and waste hours of my day just trying to think of a place to ride, because there’s so many factors that you have to include when thinking of were to ride in tucson. You could go downtown to ride street, but then you have to worry about police, and security, who have little or no sympathy for kids who ride, because they think were all criminals. We could ride washes, or street around town, but then you have to consider the random people that tend to show up out of no were and try to act like their heroes because they can yell at a bunch of kids for riding. It might sound ridiculous, but it happens all the time. Frankly, we can’t even build our own ramps to enjoy in our neighborhoods. We’ve tried on numerous occasions, and its always ends with those neighbors who see it,complain, and alert the HOA so that they can send us nice fat tickets in our mailbox’s.
So think about it. We’re can we go ride? I always ask that to the people who kick us out, or yell at us, and they think I’m trying to be smart with them. But they really just don’t realize what’s going. Their not saving the world by kicking us out a spot, their just adding to an every-growing problem in Tucson. These types of people who are trying to act like saviors need to stop all their complaining, and do what’s truly right, and help in the solution. It’s actually a lot easier than you think.
-Don’t hassle kids just for riding bikes.
-Help out organizations like the Kory Laos foundation
-Check up on Clickedbmx.com for local bmx events that are pushing for a place to ride, AND ATTEND THEM.
Any of those things could help. There’s obviously much more that I’m leaving out, but I’m just trying to show you how simple it could be. The ignorance of people in this town has just escalated the problem, to points were things such as the “Zero tolerance rule” is being enforced by TPD, where an officer catching a kid on a bike in a skatepark will automatically lead to arrest, and getting your bike impounded. Which may i add will cost hundreds of dollars to undo.
Wowww. i really didn’t mean for this to wind up this long, but i’ve been waiting for this moment for the last 4 years of my life, and if we can’t get Santa Rita skatepark to get opened for bikes, and i have to wait untill im 30 years old to finally enjoy a nice skatepark, I’m going to feel like my whole life was a waste.
so i pay taxes for the skateboarders and i pay fines and tickets for riding my bike …where is all the sense in that looks like im getting the short end of the stick here. ….. please let me in so i can do my sweet moves there awesome i wanna shralp the gnar and get sick