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Seattle Skateparks: NO BIKES ALLOWED

Seattle Center skate park is often guarded by a Segway-straddling rent-a-cop that kicks out bike riders on sight. He will scoot around all day chasing bikers out of the area, whether they are in the skate park or not. I would really like to see some more bike friendly skate parks around here, but for now I guess street riding is our only real option.

Photo by James Spalding

I was researching BMX advocacy in Seattle and came up with this article from Seattleskateparks.org. A concerned parent writes them asking why their child isn’t allowed to ride a bike at the park and their response is that Seattle doesn’t have enough room for both. With skateboarders advocating for skate parks, I do not think that anything is going to change for the growing bike community, unless we make our voices heard. I suggest emailing mlj@seattleskateparks.org and let them know (in an educated manner) that parks are needed by bikers as well as skaters. Go one step further and check out their excellent Advocacy Guide , which is a great resource if you want to know how to get a park built in your town. Just replace the word skater with biker and you have yourself a bike-park advocacy guide. I have a feeling that bikers will need to push for their own park, or else things will stay the same and skaters will continue reap all of the rewards.

in Seattle and in the majority of skateparks, mixed use simply does not work for one primary reason: we don’t have enough skateparks in Seattle so they’re always very crowded, which makes riding bikes in skateparks dangerous for skateboarders.

-Seattle Skate Parks

Jan 03, 2011 | fixed gear, photos, skate, zlog exclusives | 5 Comments