Lincoln Park Skatepark - Forest Grove, Oregon, U.S.A.

(03/25/2004) - to the extent I want to street skate I want to skate this park. Plazas are the future of street skating in skateparks. Designer: SDG with local input Builder: Local contractor Oops: The finish seemed unnecessarily rough in places. All the same, there is no question real street skating is not always (if ever) so smooth as your standard Dreamland park, so having finishes of mixed grades brings the concept closer to the real thing. The one quarterpipe's reveal appears and disappears; not set well.

Yays: This actually feels like street skating. Ample space between elements is welcome. Some edges are coped, some are not. Vegetation in planters is a great touch. Things are proportioned as you'd find in your average street scenario.

One observation: the park was packed when I was there and the element that saw the most use was... guess... the quarterpipe. I chuckled with satisfaction, knowing that even the most ardent street dogs cannot ignore the appeal of tranny. I asked a couple Koston wannas about their thoughts on the design. They loved it. Much better for them than Newberg, for instance, they offered. That seems fair. Ask me to compare the two and I'll take Newberg every time because of my own preferences.

All in all I'd say Forest Grove represents an important step in Oregon's skatepark progress- the first good street terrain. Now, if somebody could finally get around to doing a whole mess of DL-quality tranny with vert and oververt, and a whole mess of plaza we'd finally have something resembling the baseball field with all the bases and the outfield. Wow- a complete skatepark, what a concept. Forest Grove has room for a couple bowls. But I think we've seen what that town has to offer for the time being. The complete skatepark opportunity may be Portland's.

Tom Miller

Skaters for Portland Skateparks

http://www.pdxskaters.org