Off-road bicyclists will find a permanent home for stunts
starting this fall
Morgan Hill – Pulling jumps off self-sculped dirt mounds will continue at a new rough-terrain BMX park opening this fall at Community Park.
The BMX – bicycle motocross – park goes hand in hand with a new skateboard park at the Centennial Recreation Center, offering thrills for Morgan Hill youth in a city-sanctioned environment.
“We’re really excited to give skaters and (BMX riders) a way to get off the street,” said Sobrato High School student Isela Bañuelos, vice chair of the Morgan Hill Youth Advisory Committee.
Pressure for skate and BMX parks came from the city’s youth committee about five years ago, spurring the city to build temporary facilities that opened in 2001 on Butterfield Boulevard between E. Main and Diana avenues.
Bañuelos said the youth committee knew the facilities were only temporary.
Eventually, a $855,000 concrete in-ground skate-BMX park was planned for the Centennial Recreation Center, which is scheduled to open sometime after September.
But plans changed earlier this year when skaters asked for what many thought would be a better park consisting of modular steel ramps. The Morgan Hill City Council went along with the new project in March, actually saving the city about $700,000 in construction costs, but leaving BMX riders in the dust with a park design that didn’t accommodate them.
But the Morgan Hill Parks and Recreation Commission soon found a solution. They made a recommendation in April that a BMX park be located at the northwest corner of Community Park in an area designated for future parking.
The park’s configuration will be a rectangle approximately 50 feet by 200 feet, allowing ample room for future parking expansion, according to the Morgan Hill Department of Public Works. The city council saw no problems, giving the nod in May.
“It is going to be in a really nice location,” said Mori Struve, deputy director of Public Works Operations. “The park will be right next to a mixed use path, so kids can get to it just by biking to it.”
Struve said the new BMX park would pretty much operate like the existing one. “There will be a shack, with tools for kids to shape the mounds,” he said.
The Public Works Department, he added, might look into finding older BMX enthusiasts in the community to volunteer to design the park’s initial landscape of dirt jumps.
Bañuelos said the youth advisory committee might work on additional elements for the bike park. But currently, she said, the group is focussing on the skate park first and foremost, hoping to raise money for a customized ramp.
As for the city’s liabilities for injuries, Struve said jumps and ramps at the skate and BMX parks may not exceed six feet in height.
But so far, no major injuries at the temporary facilities on Butterfield Boulevard have been reported, said Chiquy MejÃa, a coordinator at the Morgan Hill Recreation and Community Services Department.
MejÃa, who serves as a staff representative on the youth advisory committee, said the perks of each park outweigh occasional scrapes and bruises.
“Kids used to have to go out to other cities,” she said, to find to find the recreational facilities they craved.
Struve pegged the combined cost of the new skate and BMX parks at $160,000. The cost will be covered by a California Department of Recreation grant, Measure C impact funds and private donations.
Tony Burchyns covers Morgan Hill for The Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ext. 201 or tb*******@mo*************.com.
