Skate park under the bridge: slides for bikes and skateboards

Not so long ago, the idea of building special slides for skateboards and bicycles seemed strange, almost unrealistic. Teenagers used to find places to skate on city squares (the steps of monuments were used as springboards), in the wastelands of city suburbs or in old abandoned factory halls. All this was a very dangerous idea, especially skating in the territory of old industrial enterprises.

A few years ago the situation started to change. First, small slides appeared on existing sports grounds, and soon specially equipped skate parks started to be built. Ideal locations were found for the construction of such sites: spaces under bridges, near complex transport interchanges, which cannot be used for building construction. Several skate parks have also been set up in large urban landscape parks.

One such skate park was installed under the Betancourt Bridge. The Betancourt Bridge was built five years ago. It is a cable-stayed bridge over one of the branches of the Neva River. The Neva is a navigable river and bridges serve as a barrier to navigation. Therefore, the bridges are raised at night so that they do not interfere with the passage of ships. The cable-stayed bridge of Betancourt has a great height, it was specially built very high, so as not to interfere with the passage of ships. This is why there are quite large areas on both banks under the elevated spans of the bridge.

Betancourt Bridge offers beautiful views in both directions, so I immediately fell in love with walking across this bridge. During one of these walks, I noticed that the space below had been transformed. At first, there were construction materials and carriages: work on the embankment was ongoing. Then it all disappeared and there was an empty flat area below. But this time it was crowded and lively, so I went down one of the stairs to see what was going on.

It appears that several skateboard and BMX bike slides have been installed under the bridge. These slides have different configurations and complexity and are popular with different age and professional categories. Some slides are quite simple, while others are quite complex. One cyclist decided to use a bridge support as a slide. It didn't look safe. I was worried about what was happening, but he soon decided to stop riding dangerously and went down.

The slides are separated by a wide strip of flat tarmac. The skating areas are divided by difficulty levels, with a total of 6 difficulty levels. The total area of the skate park is 1200 square metres. I consider that the location for such a sports facility is perfectly chosen. Other extensive skate parks are located on the far outskirts of the city and are difficult to get to, but Petrovsky Island is almost the centre of the city and is equally accessible to residents of different districts.

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Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia