Friends of Ballard park roll downtown to back skate bowl

By J. Patrick Coolican
Seattle Times staff reporter

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Skateboarders roll through Seattle's Belltown yesterday, accompanied by a police escort. The skaters rode from lower Queen Anne to the Pike Place Market to show their support for the Ballard skate park.

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The skate-march served as both a celebration of a recent victory and a demonstration in support of the Ballard skate park, known as the Ballard bowl, which Parks Department staffers have recommended replacing with a grassy Ballard Civic Center park.

The city Parks Board of Commissioners disagrees, however, and voted Thursday night to recommend keeping a skate park, though not necessarily the same bowl skaters currently carve up.

Some kind of skate bowl, which looks like an empty swimming pool, would be part of a $2.4 million park to be built next year.

The commission's recommendation goes to Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds, who's expected to make a final decision this week.

Skaters young and old — though decidedly male — started at the skate park on Fifth Avenue and Republican Street, and, with a police motorcade fit for a president, they hopped on their boards and skated down Fifth.

A marching band first played a solemn, martial drumbeat, and then "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Onlookers appeared befuddled.

Doug Edwards, 50, has been skating since the year Jimmy Carter was elected president, he said.

He traveled from Federal Way for the 15-block skate march "because we need more skate parks, and we need more good skate parks," he said.

Then he shouted, "Some downhill, baby!" after crossing Denny Way and disappeared into the throng.
 
Mike Shaughnessy had his "motorboard" with him. It's a chainsaw motor attached to a long board, with a cord running to a hand throttle. "It incorporates the best of the designs I've seen," he said.

Not all the marchers were skaters, though.

Kate Martin was there to support her two sons, 11 and 13, who skate the Ballard bowl once or twice a week, she said.

"It's a great, safe place, and they love going," she said.

Opponents of the bowl, including the Ballard Chamber of Commerce, don't want it mucking up their Civic Center plan and feel the process has been hijacked by the skater activists, who have proven effective.

Many bowl supporters spray-painted a design on their boards yesterday that read "Solidarity."

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com