austin public skatepark action committee

Travis County recently contracted a research firm to conduct a study on the recreational interests of Travis County citizens. This report was recently released and contains some pretty strong data supporting public skateparks in Central Texas.

The survey was conducted by phone and residents were asked a whole gamut of questions about what outdoor activities people in their households participate in. Skateboarding clocks in on page A-6 where 11% of respondents said someone in their house skateboards. That may seem like a dismally low response rate, however, if you look at everything above skateboarding on this list, you’ll notice that every one of those activities is benefitted by available facilities. Skateboarding captured 11% without any publicly-available facilities!

And if you consider a skatepark to be a multi-use facility shared by skateboarders, BMX, and inline skaters, 23% of the people surveyed said they knew someone in their household would use a skatepark. Even without combining these user groups, skateboarding beat baseball and softball in this part of the study.

Another interesting gem within this survey is the top ten list of activities with the highest average number of days of expected participation (page A-14). Skateboarding ranked 6th on this list with an average of 28.08 days, beating soccer by 5 days. No other team sports like baseball, softball, volleyball, football, etc. are even on this list.

The complete report can be downloaded here.

The Citizens Advisory Committee is inviting residents of Travis County to attend a series of public meetings to provide input into the proposed 2005 Travis County Bond Program. This is the biggest opportunity skateboarders have to get public funds allocated to the building of a public skatepark in Travis County. APSAC urges its membership to attend one or more of these input meetings to lobby the Advisory Committee to take skateboarding seriously.

Currently the park expansion plans include almost $6 million for the building of baseball and soccer fields. Considering that skateboarders outnumber little league participants, Travis County should budget accordingly. But it will only give skateboarders a cut of these funds if we ask for it. This is where the urethane must hit the road in the skatepark process.

Click on the ‘read more’ link to see the dates and locations of these input meetings.

Here is a PDF of the meeting schedule.

Here is an overview of the proposed park development project (baseball & soccer fields).

Here is the miniscule skatepark overview. Notice how it’s lumped in with such low-use facilities such as volleyball, spray park, picnic pavilions, etc.

Northern Travis County at 7:00 pm, Monday, June 13, 2005
Pflugerville Justice Center (Courtroom)
1611 E. Pfennig Lane

Downtown Austin at 6:00 pm, Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Travis County Commissioners’ Courtroom (Ned Granger Building, First Floor)
314 West 11th

Southeast Travis County at 6:30 pm, Thursday, June 16, 2005
Del Valle High School (Performing Arts Auditorium)
5201 Ross Road

East Travis County at 6:30 pm, Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Precinct One Satellite Service Center
9301 Johnny Morris Road

West Travis County at 6:30 pm, Thursday, June 23, 2005
Precinct Three Travis County Office Complex (Courtroom)
8658 SH 71 West
For more information contact:
Carol Joseph, Travis County Transportation & Natural Resources
512-854-9383

In May, the City of Austin’s City Council voted unanimously to sign the contract with Grindline to build the public skatepark in Mabel Davis park. Here is an article in the Daily Texan that covers this last hurdle in the process.

Laurie from Tekgnar organized a contest at House Park to draw attention to the need for a real, concrete public skatepark in Austin. The event drew a great show of support among Austin’s skating community. This support was recognized by representatives from the city who attended– Warren Struce, Director of Parks and Rec., and Toby Futrell, the City Manager. The Austin Chronicle, K-EYE, and Fox 7, were there covering the event. Here’s an article that appeared on the Fox 7 news website:

Local Skaters Want Bigger Park

Skating Advocates showed up by the dozens trying to support a new skating park in the works. At a Skatefest Saturday skaters participated in different contests while trying to voice their concerns about the park off of Shoal Creek.

Skaters say they’ve overgrown the public park and want a new cement park that has a variety of obstacles. The city says they’ve been working with the group of skaters for some time now and agree a new park is much needed.

City Manager Toby Futrell says they expected to have details ironed out sometime this year and start breaking ground on the park later this year.

APSAC held a meeting with a City Council staffer last week to discuss the status of the skate park project in Austin. Bottom line: there hasn’t been
enough public outcry demanding the skatepark. This project will stay in perpetual limbo until enough people harrass them to build this skatepark.

Per the suggestion of the council staffer, APSAC is organizing adults to speak at City Council meetings every thursday at noon. We need several people to attend each meeting and then speak for a minute on the topic of the skatepark. The staffer told us it’s more important to have adult, voting, homeowners speak than kids, because the councilmembers only care about that demograph.

If you want to see a public cement skatepark in Austin, your participation is critical. Please make a commitment to this effort by showing your support at City Council meetings.

You’ll need to register with the City Clerk’s office ahead of time. This is basically a lottery limited to 10 winners. Information on how to do this is contained below. Once you’ve registered, please let APSAC know you are scheduled to speak. We can provide you with speaking points, etc.

GENERAL CITIZEN COMMUNICATION

A maximum of 10 individuals may address council on topics of their choice during the general citizen communication portion of the council meeting. Citizen communication is currently scheduled for 12:00 noon on the council agenda. A person who intends to speak during Citizen Communication must register with the City Clerk’s Office.

The registration period for a given council meeting begins 14 days before the meeting at 9:00 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. on the Thursday before the council meeting at which the person intends to speak. Speakers are listed on the agenda in the order in which their registrations were received.
The City Clerk’s Office cannot accept more than 10 registrations.

Registration can be done by fax (974-2374), phone (974-2210), e-mail (Citizens.Communication@ci.austin.tx.us) or in person in the Office of the
City Clerk, Room 116, Municipal Building, 124 W. 8th Street (8th and Colorado). If you are registering by e-mail or fax, provide the following
information: Meeting Date, Name, Address including Zip code, Telephone Number, and Topic. You will receive a confirmation e-mail or fax to let
you know your speaker number.

The new concrete skatepark in San Antonio seems to be a huge success. I’ve spoken with dozens of skaters at the facility and the main complaint I hear is that it’s too crowded. Hardly anyone mentions all the details I described in my earlier review of the skatepark.

According to a recent article in the San Antonio Express-News, it looks like the city is taking notice. San Antonio Parks and Recreation is planning to build a larger, $1 million facility.

Clearly, San Antonio’s experiment with concrete has demonstrated the demand is there for quality skateparks rather than the temporary prefab structures found in its other public skate facilities. Hopefully, the city will move forward with professional skatepark designers and builders on its future projects.