Saturday, February 25, 2006

The sound of a skatepark

We have received a few questions about sound and traffic. Here is what we have discovered:

The city has conducted both sound and traffic studies at the Lakeridge Park and found the impact to be very low. Most of the skaters bike, skateboard or bus to the site, and we can assume that with the much greater accessibility of Les Sherman, this would be even more so the case. From our observation, there are seldom more than one or two cars in the parking lot at Lakeridge or the indoor park.

As for sound, it is a very quiet sport compared to a baseball or soccer game, and has been consistently measured to be lower than other ambient noise in the area, both in Regina and at locations in other cities more similar to the Les Sherman site. (In Vancouver, it ranked behind birds and playground noises).

Someone asked about music; from what we observe the days of the boom box are long gone. Skaters who like to skate to music where Ipods plugged directly into their ears. The only hearing damaged will be their own.

The skaters mostly concentrate on their tricks, and quietly tap their skateboards on the ground when someone lands something special. The other sound consists mainly of rolling wheels, similar to inline skates on the bike path, and some mild clattering of boards when they miss their flips. From a few yards away, you can hear very little of this.

The noise study - For a guideline, normal human conversation is about 65 decibels.

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