by Nathan Boddy
Residents who want to spin their tires and catch some air got some good news at the Hamilton Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday June 27th. City Council members heard a presentation by representatives of the Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists and Bike Walk Bitterroot concerning the BMX park and their desire to improve the park. The park, which is officially called the Sapphire BMX Park, lies immediately south of the Vester Wilson Sports Complex and American Legion Park. Those city-owned properties lie south of Bitterroot Brewery and adjacent to the railroad tracks and Taulman Street, but also include a one acre stretch of land which dips farther south behind the batting cages. That parcel, surrounded on three sides by residential land use, is the nearly unrecognizable BMX park.
Amy Fox, who spoke in her role as the city’s Director of Parks and Urban Forestry, gave a brief history of the BMX park’s creation in 2002.
“It was really nice at one point,” she said, while sharing photos of the newly created bike park features and maintained vegetation. Fox said that there were other amenities as well, such as multiple picnic tables, a wooden fence and even signage. There were, at the time, plans for further expansion which would have included a starting gate and even the hosting of races. She followed up with photos of the park as it stands now.
“It’s neglected, unfortunately,” she said, while showing photos of a very weedy patch of ground, punctuated by flattened and misshapen bike features. “It gets used, and I know there are people that want to use it more,” she said.
Part of the reason for the neglect, Fox pointed out, is the park’s awkward location that puts it more or less out of sight. Lack of maintenance has combined with its somewhat private nature to create a site that tends to attract vandalism and behaviors that most folks would prefer to avoid. “Depending on when you go, there are people there hanging out that you might not want to hang out with,” she said.
Any visit to the BMX track can easily confirm those statements via the detritus left behind which includes broken glass, spray painted messages, even condoms. Councilor Kristi Bielski echoed the sentiment as well, saying that bringing her own child to the park in years past could, on occasion, feel “sketchy.”
Luckily, the local non-profit, Bitterroot Backcountry Cyclists, is willing to lend some of their trail building experience and muscle to improve a piece of ground that is decidedly not backcountry. BBC, along with Bike Walk Bitterroot, is asking the Hamilton City Council for the go ahead to put their backs into the BMX track to bring it back up to speed.
Donny Ramer, Public Works Director, also serves on the board of the BBC, and vocalized what his organization would like to accomplish.
“They’d like to do a community work day,” he said. “Make things flow a little better and make things safer.” Ramer says that many of the bumps are hard to safely navigate after years without proper upkeep.
“We just want to make it a little more usable for the public.”
Ramer says that the long term goal would be for the BBC to be able to partner with the city and Bike Walk Bitterroot to apply for grants to put even more improvements into the park in order to, “make it more usable for more groups.”
Ramer says that irrigation is accessible to the site, and installation of some ground cover to fight back the weeds would be an important step in reclaiming the park as well. Access, signage and improved security with motion activated lighting could all be components of making the BMX park another solid amenity within the City of Hamilton.
“In short, have a presence there on a regular basis,” he said. “Try to keep it maintained and looking nice and functional will hopefully bring some more people in to use it.”
The Committee of the Whole moved to have the issue brought before the City Council for official consideration.