Underground bridge Skatepark in SODO

After the city of Seattle decided to tear down the legal skateparks in the city (Ballard Skatepark and Seaskate) to purportedly "rebuild them at a future date", local skate kids did the unexpected: they started a blog. Well, OK, actually they started a grassroots volunteer group that is building their own skatepark under the West Seattle Bridge. And, they have a blog.

"Underpass" recreation areas are growing in occurence in the northwest, both in reaction to difficulties with city and county parks and rec types, but also for obvious dry-condition reasons as well. Either way, they make magnificent use of under-utilized (and often abandoned, garbage-ridden) urban areas. Yet their existence is as tenuous as the homeless types they typically displace. We were living in Portland when the now-infamous Burnside skate park came to be, and thought it was sheer genius. But to this day, 14 years later, those who maintain it still worry that at any moment the city could swoop in and shut them down. We certainly hope that Seattle doesn't reverse its previous skate-park friendly stance, as those who pushed through the Colonnade project under I-5 are relying on what they perceived to be the past successes of skate parks in this area to lay a foundation for similar efforts for BMX and mountain bike parks.