Half-pipe for Sackville’s skateboard park (Photo courtesy Canadian Ramp Company)
The 20-year-old Sackville skateboard park will be getting a big upgrade this fall if town council approves a $23,000 expenditure for a 30-foot long, 12-foot wide and four-foot high galvanized steel structure known as a half-pipe.
At their meeting this week, councillors were told that the Canadian Ramp Company was the low bidder on the project and that the money would come from the $150,000 the town was awarded as part of New Brunswick’s Canada 150 provincial grants.
Councillors will be asked to approve the project at their next meeting on September 11th.
Black enthusiastic
“As a skater, I’m really excited for a half-pipe in Sackville,” said Councillor Andrew Black.
He added that when he was a kid, there were two plywood structures downtown.
“And kids got hurt quite often. They would just get up and cry and go home…but a half-pipe is just going to be fantastic for the people who skate in town.”
Black predicted that as Sackville’s skatepark develops further, people will travel from other areas such as Moncton and Amherst to skate here.
Skatepark history
Sackville skateboard park on Dufferin St. in 2017
Judging from a search of archival articles in the Sackville Tribune-Post, the town’s skateboard park has evolved slowly over the past two decades.
“When a bylaw was introduced in 1996 prohibiting the use of skateboards on town streets and sidewalks, the town set up a temporary park for skateboarders in the parking lot of Atlantic Wholesalers (now Moneris),” the newspaper’s Katie Tower reported in November, 2008.
“This served the purpose until the new $25,000 park was built in 1997 on Dufferin Street, a year after a group of local skaters approached town council asking for a safe and suitable place to enjoy their sport,” she added.
Park expansion
Along with the installation of the new half-pipe, town staff are proposing to spend an additional $10,500 of the provincial grant money to expand the park slightly and perhaps, spruce up some of the existing equipment.
I wish I knew about this park earlier! I know someone who would have enjoyed it…
I agree with Councellor Black that kids get hurt often (I have been a city street roller blader for years, even under shelling, and I survived…).
This being said, what is the size of our skatepark population? Do Sackville youth have continued interest in the park since its opening? I am curious.
Are more funds required for future maintenance?
Is this park usually supervised? And are there extra costs related to liability (insurance)?
Finally, how about adding an inexpensive yet priceless Canadian signature to that project/park (eg., decoration? Flag?). I say this because the funds would come from the “New Brunswick’s Canada 150” grant :).
This is great news. Please repave and ‘re organize what is already there as well. The structure s that are there are great just hard to get speed to roll up when the ground is so very rough. I would also suggest a 3 foot ramp instead of a 4. Safer and more use will be gotten out of it. Cheaper also. Every park has features that are too big and dangerous for the kids living in the town. Amherst spent all that money on a huge halfpipe and a big wallride feature and how much does it get used? By using what you already have and expanding you could make a great skatpark in sackville that people would come and skate.
Cloyde, when you have a respectable skatepark with normal sized ramps, kids become better and get used to riding big ramps. Visit any “real” skatepark out in California or BC and you’ll see 12-year-olds ripping up 11 foot quarterpipes instead of kids getting tired and displeased with the tiny Canadian Ramp Company ramps. Remember, kids can always air below the coping on a 6-ft ramp, while someone with 1 year of skill is going to grow defeated by always having to ride a 3-ft ramp that’s too small to air or take their speed as they ride up to it.
Also, and also adding to the point in the main article, people travel for skateparks like Moncton & Amherst. I’ve personally travelled to Amherst because of their skatepark. If you put in a 3-ft Canadian Ramp Company mediocre halfpipe, that isn’t going to make anyone visit your town for the skatepark. Why would you stop in Sackville for a crappy CRC ramp instead of going to Moncton or Amherst?
Does anyone goto Moncton or Amherst for the big expensive very. I have been to at least 30 skateparks all across Canada. You all ways see the same thing. Massive very obstacles never being used. Prime example is the concert full pipe at millennium. You don’t build a skate park to attract people from other areas imo. You build them to give locals something to do. Anyways doesn’t look like anything is being done anyways.
Its not a real skatepark .. and I am sorry that people don’t understand the sport enough to know that .. especially Andrew Black .. a real skatepark would be used and enjoyed and perhaps have some sun shelter as Moncton does … its important to understand the blatant lack of regard for the project for a concrete skatepark goes back at least 30 years plus .. to Duncan – one of the guys behind the Frisbee Golf Park could fill Bruce Wark in on the details of his attempts in his youth to get a park .. and more recently Mark Iglioriote an avid skater, artist instructor, father and advocate for the youth — there was a few summers with skatepark supervisors hired and paid well to hang out with the youth there .. there was Ethan Sears – son of former Mayor Pat Estabrooks group that made a great presentation to town council and mayor in the summer of 2013 – they even had matching tshirts and showed enthusiasm for a REAL SKATEPARK BUILD but most have grown up and left town .. so its just got to be a project LED by an adult who lives here .. me .. mother of two teens who grew up skateboarding and longboarding in this town so I pushed the project as best I could despite being blocked by the Town on facebook since 2015 for asking a question… hence the “Sackville Uncensored” to push against censorship around here in a small town that prides itself of being “community minded” and “inclusive” I can assure that it is not a true description… https://sackvilleuncensored.blogspot.com/2019/04/skateparks-not-monuments-for-sackville.html
Just checked out “Sackville Uncensored’s” blog. Wonderful, just what the world needs – another right-winger spouting off against people whose skin isn’t as white as theirs and also spreading the typical propaganda and misinformation about the serious problem of human-triggered climate change. What a true humanitarian you are. If immigrants of non-European origin coming to our country bother you so much, perhaps you should consider moving to Trumpland, where someone with your insights and values would be welcomed with open arms by the “fine” folks supporting The Donald.
Wow—blocked on FB for asking a question?
Regardless of your question (no clue what it is and I do not care to know), I am just VERY worried about any practice of censorship in any place.
What kind of societies do we want to foster? Places where all the people think the same (or at least pretend to) places where some would pretend to be morally superior to others who do not share their views? Why can’t we hear all the voices, especially those we do not agree with?
Why don’t we trust the citizens’ intelligence in reading those comments and deciding what to think about them? To ignore them or to learn something from them?
Just to give you a silly example, you may be someone who does not like short or petite people. Should I feel “unsafe” by this and go hide in our basement? Should I accuse you of “petitephobia” or “petitetism” (for racism :))? Should I demand that you stop asking questions about short people?
And to be serious now, it was Easter last weekend (today for Orthodox Christians). On this important day for my family in Beirut, I shared a link of a funny video of a British Comedian called “The practising Atheist” with one of my sisters living there. We both laughed a lot and decided that we like this guy (note: I do believe in God in my heart, contrary to her).
For God’s sake, where is people’s tolerance (of diversity of opinions)… and sense of humour?