Erie’s New Skatepark – Pretty Important Thing

It’s been a long time coming – about 5 years, to be exact. But finally, finally, it seems as though Erie will be receiving its first skatepark. Sure, not every middle-aged-mother-of-four is happy to hear this. Some people have this irrational fear that a skatepark will ruin the community, or even cause a decrease in property values – when really, it’s just the opposite.

Artist's rendition of what the new skatepark will look like.

Here’s just a brief list of great things this park will do for the community (you can find more here):

• Give skaters a safe and legal place to practice, make friends, stay out of trouble, etc.
• Act as a tourist attraction, considering the closest skate park is in Titusville, plus it’s only for community members and pretty lame anyway
• Will likely have a positive effect on the local economy, since parents from Meadville or other outlying areas are more likely to visit Erie, drop off their kids at the park, go shopping, have lunch, etc.

But maybe the greatest thing the park will do is reignite the fire between skaters and BMX riders who historically do not get along. Even with skateparks in larger cities like Pittsburgh, “skate” parks usually become littered with BMX bikers. In Pittsburgh’s South Park, there is a skatepark (with ramps, a halfpipe, and street course, etc) located directly next to a BMX park (a track lined with mulch, designed specifically for BMXers). Still, 99% of the time there are more bikers than skaters in the skatepark, and the skaters become confined to 1/4 area of the park. We here at YB have been worried for awhile that this would happen in Erie’s skatepark – that is simply not the case, according to Skate Erie’s Myspace Blog:

“While the Skate Erie Association is in agreement that bikers need a place of their own, it will not be this park.” – Skate Erie’s Blog

Fig 2 - example of a quarter-pipe.

BMXers have always been notorious for being obnoxious. A number of them have supposedly messaged Skate Erie saying “Fuck the police, like I’m gonna get fined for hitting a quarter”. “A quarter” is like a halfpipe, but a quarter (see fig. 2). Anyway, the park isn’t even going to have a quarter pipe. Skate Erie has publicly said many times that they would gladly help local BMXers build their own park. Local BMXers, according to Skate Erie, never assisted in bulding this park, while many skaters organized fundraisers and attended lots of meetings to get this done. It’s only fair.

Lastly, Skate Erie and the skaters of the area should be incredibly proud of themselves. They received a $25,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation, one of only 3 cities to get one so large last year – one of the other ones was Oceanside California. They’re getting a really nice, free, public park – it’s a pretty important thing. YB wishes you all the best, and only asks that we will be able skate there too.