Portlander Aaron Lutze (Lutze Time on YouTube) has created an excellent video of the recent developments at Gateway Green Bike Park. If you’ve heard about this park and are still unsure — or if have remaining questions about it, I think you’ll find Aaron’s video very helpful.
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Lutze takes viewers on-board his bike and offers informative narration as he checks out the new pump track, the old pump track (which I didn’t even realize they kept!), the singletrack forest trails, the new skills area, the nature play area, and the flowy new downhill section. The only major part of the park I didn’t see in the video was the new adaptive bike trail in the north end of the park that was built specifically for riders with disabilities who use bikes with three and four wheels.
Check out Aaron’s video below:
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Great video! I want to know what time he went there to find it so empty. I’ve never managed to ride the old (or new) pumptrack at GG because it’s always been mobbed with kiddos when I’ve gone and I didn’t feel like I could take time/space from their use. To be fair, the old pumptrack wasn’t mobbed with kids when I went, it was just so tiny that one or two little kids on it meant it probably wasn’t really safe to ride.
Anyhow- super excited about all this new stuff. The two times we’ve gone it was too wet to really use those gravity lines and you can see in the video how much damage was done to those trails already from wet riding. Hopefully we can get those smoothed out with some work parties. Builders did a stellar job!
We went on our lunch break and it was just us and one other person. All adults, though equally clueless.
Hopefully they can up the policing to make sure gutter punks and their cigarette, marijuana and alcohol usage would not be tolerated. These conducts plague the Burnside Skatepark and the anarchy prevents it from being family friendly.
I’m assigning you a task, say something nice for each time you say something so un-nice. Because honestly, your comment doesn’t make the conversation any better. << me policing this forum.
I listed out actual observed behavioral issues that plagues many skate parks. These issues are shared at the illicit skatepark under the St. Johns bridge and as well as the Burnside Park. Making sure these conducts are strictly enforced and exclusions being issued is extremely important not to just keep the park orderly, but to prevent the neighborhood from becoming the point of congregation by riffy raffy BMX type clientele.
What a killjoy you are. I am assuming this is parody and you are mocking authoritarians?
I ride bmx and you sir are a bicycle bigot and will probably never go ride this fine park. Good day.
Personally, I don’t see any need to “up the policing.” GG and Burnside are not at all comparable. Does every place, especially when there are a plethora of alternatives, need to be family friendly?
Gateway Green should definitely be family friendly.
I agree, maybe that wasn’t clear.
Consumption of alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, including vaping is prohibited city parks by city ordinance. Public marijuana use is also prohibited by state law. Parks are intended to be inclusive to all and the rules are in place to make sure it is a friendly place for everyone. When they are not enforced, this place is at the risk of becoming like Burnside Skatepark where families with children are not made to feel welcome.
If such activities are to be allowed, they need to be built on private property by a private developer on a full tax lot as a private enterprise at no expense to the public.
No one is less tolerant of gutter punks than I am. Policing won’t work but the park is on track to keep the issue manageable. Crowds of users with forthright intentions and protective, athletic dads (out of view from police) will keep the park family friendly. Pot will be smoked but as I well know, this is easy to do in the shadows. Use the park and bring your friends. Feel a sense of ownership and speak out against transgressions. It is awesome!
If you think Burnside is bad now, you should have seen it *before* the skatepark was built (by hand by locals).
In practice, Burnside is not available to everyone. Unlawful drug use (marijuana is included in this) and alcohol use for one that’s not really good for minors to be around. Cigarettes are being smoked (which isn’t allowed if it was PP&R operated). Vigilante gatekeepers gatekeeping and making family users unwelcome and making it rather exclusive to riffy raffy types. One guy harassing photographers/extorting $$$ in order to be able to take photos.
Regardless of what it was before, public funds or tax exemption should never be allowed for such “park type” facilities. It’s best to manage it right from the beginning before this type of undesirable culture takes over the new GG.
I’ve taken my kids there multiple times and NEVER had an issue. If you go there with your 4 year old on the push bike at 5 PM on Friday night, you’re kinda asking for it. Comparing Burnside to Gateway Green is like saying the Taylor Swift concert is comparable to the Slayer show. Apples and Oranges.
I don’t smoke marijuana but Chopwatch makes me want to get vey high next time I head on over to Gateway Green.
Without Anarchy there would be no Burnside skatepark. Your comment is incredibly ignorant. Kill the cop in your head.
I love it. “Linda’s Line” named after Gateway Green’s most tireless advocate, long-time parks champion, and life-long East County resident Linda Robinson. Sure glad the naysayers didn’t triumph or hold up this project (first hatched ~2006). Special kudos to all those who do serve and have served on the Friends of Gateway Green Board of Directors. They more than anyone, saw this project through…. not that it is finished. There should be further habitat enhancement/creation, the perimeter trail, and the I-205 underpass (when will that be done?).
How about an I- 205 underpass connection to singletrack trails at Rocky Butte? I’m confident that more than a few people would show up to build and maintain some quality XC trails in that area.
When we had neighborhood meetings about Gateway Green a decade ago, more than a few people brought up having a Pill Hill-type gondola system from Parkrose Heights (just east of 102nd) to Rocky Butte with a stopover tower on Gateway Green. There is a culvert tunnel under I-84 in Gresham, so such a trail tunnel should be possible and not too pricey, if rather dark and uncomfortable. Ask your gov for money. The only tunnels under I-205 are now used by light rail, but the graffiti at this site before MAX moved in was really impressive!
A tunnel would immediately get filled with tents.
Now do Forest Park.
How about this unused slip of ODOT land between Barbur and I-5, at the end of Slavin (5172 SW Slavin)? https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4853969,-122.6811898,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZO-JVgIILS-D-PDhK9iIAg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DZO-JVgIILS-D-PDhK9iIAg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D355.3849%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
wow, what great improvements from when the park opened. So many more options and looks like a legit city park now!
😍
I actually got dizzy watching the video!
It’s a great video. I have no idea how this person was riding it with almost no one else there. Each of the 4 times I’ve been it has been very crowded. 30-40 people waiting on the pump track
Stoked for these improvements. I’m not a mountain biker but love stopping at Gateway Green on my ‘gravel’ bike along my way to a bigger rides. Might have to try my skateboard at the pump track but please don’t let Chopwatch know this…