On Thursday Nov 13, 2003 the Township Council will consider spending $150,000 on a skateboard park. We need you at the meeting that starts at 8:00 to let the Council know we don't think it serves enough of the community to warrant the expense.

First let us warn you, at the township meeting you will hear that the money that will pay for it will come from money donated by a developer. This was money negotiated by the planning board in lieu of parks and recreation on the site of one of the senior villages. What you need to remember is that there is no free money. This is money that was put into the general fund. If it is taken out then that is money which could have gone to tax savings.

At the same time we were putting up this web page Raven Hill was likely writing her article for THNT. The information in her article is as we predicted above. Here is Chip Hoever's response.

In brief

• The rapid growth rate in skateboarding cited by Skateboard Park For Franklin is only over 3 years. The staying power of the sport is yet to be proven.
• Conventional team sports still have many more participants.
• Skateboarding is not a team activity thus it does not promote the values of team sports.
• Skateboarding is relatively safe and the liability issues are not significant. These are not reasons to not build.
• The park will serve less than 2% of the population in the advocated "not have to drive scenario". That's based on the number of children that live in walking distance. Far fewer will actually use it.
• A similar commercial park in the area has closed. TUF questions how many will use the park.

We do not feel that this skateboard park will serve a significant portion of the community and therefore urge the council to consider the needs and desires of the silent, VAST MAJORITY.

In detail

At the Sept 9th Township Council meeting the head of Skateboard Park For Franklin (SPFF) cited the 15th annual Superstudy on sports. The report and the SPFF leader cite that in the last 3 years skateboarding has increased in popularity by 73%. The most of any in the sport studied. What was not mentioned was that the study included anyone who used a skateboard just once in the last year. It did not break down if the skateboard was used in the way it would be at a park or not. A copy of the full study is $700 so it is not available to TUF. What is available is that the 14-year change is only 14%, thus we still don't know if its current popularity has staying power. We also see that that conventional team sports still have significantly more participants.

Many have argued before the Council that skateboarding is a real sport. We agree. Some are worried that skateboarding is dangerous. It turns out that serious skate boarding injuries are infrequent though TUF urges the Council that if a park is built the users be required to wear helmets, gloves and padding. Some are concerned about liability. This is not a major concern because the Township is insured and the park will not increase the fees significantly. TUF believes that if the park is built that minors provide sign waivers from their parents before using it.

TUF's concern is not if a skateboard park is good or bad but that it serves so few. The argument for the park has frequently been that people don't want to drive to the parks in neighboring areas. This implies that the kids will be able to get to the park on their own. That would be true of only those who live within 2 miles or so of the site. We calculate that this would be less than 2% of the population* that will get added benefit from the park under the "not have to drive" scenario that SPFF finds so important. The rest will still have to drive and there are existing parks in neighboring communities.

What we don't have is a count of the number of children that use the near by parks. We do know that the pay-per-use skateboard park in Bridgewater in the Chimney Rock area closed, apparently unable to gather enough business.

Finally here is the best glimpse at the Superstudy that we could find on the web. Reading it made us realize that skateboarding is a solitary and not a team sport. It does not teach the concepts of team work that team sports teach.

* TUF does not have a population density map of the Township but we do have a map of the voting districts. These districts are partitioned to have approximately equal numbers of registered voters. We realize that that does mean an equal distribution of children but it's the best we can do. The skateboard park is at the corner of 4 districts. There are 47 districts. By a rough but conservative estimate 4/47 or 8.5% of the population will be able to walk or skateboard to the park. About 19.4% of Somerset's population is between 5 and 19 years old and 76% of skateboarders are boys We will not do the math here but that means that no more than 33% of girls in the area will skateboard. Combine all these numbers and you get 1.2% of the population live within 2 miles of the proposed park and are children that might skateboard. (This estimate is likely high but even if we were wrong by a factor of 2 it would only be 2.5% of the population)

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