Friends of Sunnyside Bike Park – An Advocacy Success Story

We need you, the rider, to join us. Sunnyside Bike Park (SBP) was built through the effort of dozens of community members and we need you to help us build Friends of Sunnyside Bike Park into the group that cares for, keeps clean and advocates for what the riders want this amazing place to become.

In early 2011, the High Park BMX jumps were removed as they were on the Seneca Wolf Clan’s Serpent Mounds in the south east corner of the park. A few members of the Toronto Off-Road Bicycle Association (TORBA) approached the new Ward 13 Councillor, Sarah Doucette to ask what the City was going to do to replace the BMX area as it saw regular community use.

Councillor Doucette quickly took up the charge and became the political champion to get a bicycle skills park built in her ward to replace the High Park jumps. Together with City staff champion Scott Laver of the Natural Trails group in Parks, Forestry and Recreation they worked to steer this project through many hurdles and challenges. Graham Seaman, Paul Stuart, Brian Betsworth, Chris Svirklys and many others worked to keep in touch with the City representatives in order to keep the project moving forward and the community informed. Maybe too informed, one lesson learned in this advocacy project was, don’t spill the beans too soon, be patient and let information come up and out as the bureaucracy and politicos would like.

After a trip to Parks and Environment Committee of City Council where a few members of TORBA and Councillor Doucette spoke in favour of the project, things really got going and are well summarized by the City of Toronto’s Sunnyside Bike Park page:

In 2012, the City of Toronto commissioned Jay Hoots, the most experienced bike park designer in North America, to design a new bike park in the western beaches that runs parallel to the north side of Lake Shore Boulevard between Colborne Lodge Road and Ellis Avenue.

The park has been designed to offer progressively difficult challenges and opportunities for off-road cycling skill building. Phase one has been completed and includes all of the riding features: a skills trail, pumptracks, a wide variety of jump lines, a large drop and a wall ride. Phase two, to be completed in 2015, will include improvements to the entrance to the park with a new pick-up and drop off area, family meeting area, trails, boardwalks and more. These amenities have been planned in order to make the park an ideal destination for families and people who wish to try off-road cycling for the first time.

This new bike park will address the lack of off-road cycling venues in the west end of the city. The hope is that it will reduce or eliminate informal parks being created in ecologically sensitive areas in the High Park neighbourhood. This project is a concrete example of Parks, Forestry and Recreation’s work with the off-road cycling community to protect forests and natural areas in the City.

TORBA continued to work with the City and riding community to celebrate and support the opening of the long awaited Sunnyside Bike Park mid-summer 2014. A number of volunteer days took place where the community came out and worked side by side with Jay Hoots and his awesome team to do the final detail work and test riding.

What made this a successful advocacy initiative? We think it took four things: (1) good timing, (2) lots of communication, (3) lots of patience and (4) a team of people working toward the shared goal of bicycle skills park in west end Toronto.

Good timing – The removal of the High Park BMX jumps provided a political opportunity for TORBA to step up and advocate for replacement of an existing set of dirt jumps. It gave us a call to action. Communication – We undertook to communicate early, often and broadly with the community to ensure people were kept up to speed and knew when key opportunities were to get engaged and participate in the advocacy and community consultations. Patience – A few of us had experience working in or with municipalities so we knew this was going to be a long game and we were prepared to see the project through from the initial letter to Councillor Doucette in 2011 to breaking ground in the fall of 2013 to finally opening in summer of 2014. Teamwork – As the project gained momentum more member of TORBA and the cycling community at large got involved, everyone worked together to provide their thoughts and time to keep the project on track toward a skills park near High Park.

The City has established a Sunnyside Bike Park Working Group that has City staff from various departments on Parks, Forestry and Recreation, Councillor Doucette and community representatives from Ward13 Bikes, TORBA/Friends of Sunnyside and Riding Feels Good. To learn more about this group contact trails@toronto.ca

For 2015 a few members of the TORBA Board of Director’s are working to set up a specific group to steward Sunnyside Bike Park. The fledgling group is Friends of Sunnyside Bike Park, lead by Graham Seaman, Chris Svirklys and Greg Paszkowski.

Friends of Sunnyside Bike Park (FoSBP) has been entrusted by City staff with a key to the shipping container at the east end of the Park. The container contains a variety of shovels, rakes, tampers, brooms, hoses, water sprayers, gloves…all the tools we need to make sure the park is in tip top shape.

Our challenge is we need more people to join us, the three of us only have so much time.

Some areas of work we see are:

Regular maintenance and cleaning of the jumps, pumps track and ladder rides

Volunteers to help people understand bike park etiquette

Organizing learn to bike days

Running competitions and events

Fund raising and developing partnerships to utilize the vacant building on site as a community hub and bike shop

So if you are interested in getting involved in an innovative community project, please post up here on ridingfeelsgood.com, follow us on twitter @FriendsofSBP or like Friends of Sunnyside Bike Park on facebook.

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