Thanks to Jon for passing this along to the BBTC listserve. The beneath-the-freeway mountain bike park our Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club has been working steadfastly on for two years now has been picked by CNN as one of the more creative examples of turning wasted space into green space.
Scroll through their selections here, I-5 Colonnade is #5 on a list that includes some pretty snazzy examples from some of the great cities of the world.
I hadn't been down to Colonnade in months, but I've seen photos on the BBTC site showing numerous skinnies, teeter-totters, and even a very cool looking suspension bridge now. It's come a long, long way since I last worked on it. And this is just for the "Novice Area" which is set to have it's grand opening next week. Hopefully I have the time to swing down there to attend the festivities. A quick scan of the list of people signed up to attend the party reveals a few names I believe never worked on the project. Hopefully they donated their money for one of the engraved paving stones instead. It'd be pretty lame of people who couldn't be bothered to even attend one work party in two years to suddenly show up for the party.
I-5 Colonnade Photo Gallery at BBTC.org.
5 comments:
Thanks for promoting the event! :)
I'm happy for anyone & everyone to show up--that's how we'll get new people to volunteer & donate in the future. Plus, more people = bigger party.
Yeah, that's true. And by no means did I do all that much -- I just went to 3 or 4 work parties -- but it does strike me as funny that so many people could show up for the party, but not to work on it. Then again, maybe they just wanted to take a VERY long wait-and-see approach to it and once they see the completed Novice area, they'll make an effort to help out with the other areas. I know a lot of us out this way in Snoqualmie and points further east probably won't ride it much just cause it's so far away and we have real trail right here. Nevertheless, it's very cool to see CNN picking up on it. Awesome.
Do I get credit for showing up for the very first one two years ago when all that was there were weeds and needles ;)
It is very interesting indeed that they all show up afterwards. Maybe it is a trick to get more folks to show up and they will all be given a project...
I agree that you probably won't find me there riding when I have such great riding in my back yard.
No offense brother….But wouldn’t that mean that every trail that you rode you would have to work on…?
Floyd
None taken.
No, I just think that's it's more about the numbers involved. The work parties struggle to get more than 3 or 4 people with any regularity, yet the party has like 30 people signed up.
Of course, like I said to Erik, if those people are busy working on other trails then it's all good. Not everyone can work on everything. I just think in this case that it's pretty telling. I'm sure those who never did any work on it (or any work anywhere for that matter) would try to reason away any guilt they may or may not feel, but I'm sure that number is very low. Most people do work on trails at least a few times a year and contribute in other ways to the sport. My comment's weren't about that, though. Just an observation that two years of seeing work parties on the ride calendar with few people sign up, but 30+ people signed up to celebrate it's opening.
And who knows, maybe everyone going did attend a couple work parties there. I doubt it, but maybe. Whatever. The park is built and that's all that matters.
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