The Tribune
By Amanda Pennelly
July 15,2005
It’s a victory worth celebrating for both skateboarders and BMX bikers, the two largest local skate-park user groups. But the general sense of triumph could be trumped by a potentially bigger struggle ahead: deciding who exactly gets to use the parks and how.
Many skateboard advocates want exclusive access to the new facilities, while most BMX riders want shared, equal access.
It’s a conflict city managers will have to address before anyone starts pouring concrete, said Parks & Recreation project manager Rod Wojtanik, who has been in charge of the skate-park project since voters approved a 2002 parks operating levy that allocated $500,000 to future public skate-park projects.
“Besides identifying locations, user access is probably the most difficult issue a city faces when building these parks,” he said.
It’s a decision made especially difficult in Portland, where skateboarding has one of the largest and strongest constituencies in the nation
Okay, I could write a very long article on this one. However, I'll make it short :-)
First, skateboarders and bike riders do not pay taxes into the system as we do with our vehicles.
Secondly, if they are "one of the largest and strongest contingencies in the nation", then they should be able to raise money for their own skateboard parks.
Third, while we are constantly hearing that schools do not have any money for the basics, but they can come up with money for this.
Where I live, some of the city streets are bad enough that you almost need an SUV to keep from drowning in a pothole.
If we had a good economy at the moment, I could see spending money this way. But reality check, we have a long way to go before we get to that point.
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