'Wall of Death' is Dead
These days Seattlest's skateboarding activity is limited almost exclusively to a few lazy longboard turns on the Burke-Gilman every once in a while, and the Wall of Death bank under the University Bridge (the skate spot that is literally dwarfed by the gigantic monument to it across the path) was one of our little pleasures on those rides. Just a quick up and down and we were on our way. Back in the day, though, we could have spent countless hours skating that spot, so when we saw a post about the recent safe-ification/ruination of that bank over on the Slog it hit us pretty hard:
The city—SDOT? the parks department?—recently tore up a three-foot wide trench in the ramp and set large rocks in concrete. There could only be one reason to do this: to prevent boarders from skating the “Wall of Death.”
Why is that spot--innocuous and meager--a problem that deserves this solution? After all these years? Did someone powerful hurt their widdle wrist in an accident with a skater there and authorize that costly eyesore? Who decided those rocks were being installed? Consider us on a mission to find out.
Ok, skateboard traffic perpendicular to bike and pedestrian traffic isn't the greatest idea. Seattlest has never had a problem on the trail at that spot, but it's not hard to imagine an accident. You know what's more dangerous than skateboards and bikes intersecting, though? Bikes and cars. Where is the funding for laying down hidious rock formations in the middle of every street that crosses the BG? Ridiculous, yeah. Signs, markings on the trail and street and even traffic lights in some instances seem to keep things safe enough where streets cross the Burke-Gilman, but instead of spending money to make the skate spot more visible to people approaching on the trail this abomination was erected; a new monument to Seattle's ever-forward march towards pussification.
Photo borrowed from the Slog.
