US – Thursday, September 2

New park: Better skate than never

Crews built the course for this weekend’s Dew Tour Skate Open at TD Garden in three days. Nearby, the Charles River Skatepark is taking nearly a decade.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Armin Bachman, co-owner of Allston’s Orchard Skateshop, said of the park planned for underneath the Zakim Bridge ramp in East Cambridge. “I don’t know why all the ’burbs get prefab parks.

Even though they’re terrible, at least they’re something.”

The Charles River Conservancy has raised $2.5 million for the park, and DCR has another $1.8 million of Big Dig mitigation money for design and construction.  

“Bottom line is DCR and Charles River Conservancy are in deep discussions about how best to establish a long-term operation and maintenance plan,” DCR spokeswoman Wendy Fox said.  

Renata von Tscharner, the founder and president of the conservancy, didn’t respond to repeated interview requests.

While suburban skateparks have sprouted up in the last few decades — embraced as a means to occupy idle kids — urban parks, like those in Los Angeles and New York, are a recent phenomenon.

But Bachman said Boston’s only two parks — in East Boston and Hyde Park — aren’t safe. He hopes the Dew Tour draws attention to the need for the Charles River Skatepark.  

“Things are starting to look good,” Bachman said. “We’re hopeful.”

“Boston has a thriving skate community. We’re lucky to have good street spots, but it would be nice to have an amazing skatepark.”