Rico and I visited the Bustamente skatepark two days in a row. It was a lot of fun, and I feel like I got to connect across language with Chileans by skating beside them.
The skatepark is located within Parque Bustamente, a long swath of green space that extends south from Baquedano the metro station. The Parque is excellent! It’s about a block wide and continues for over a kilometer, with swaths of public green space, playgrounds, and even a library at it’s midpoint.
What I noticed most about the skatepark and the larger Parque surrounding it was not its design but the sheer amount of use it saw. It seems that on some days the park lighting is mostly off, save for the skatepark. However, there were still hundreds of people using the Parque, seated in small groups and talking, or participating in classes like self-defense and yoga. The skatepark had over 40 people actively skating, and over 100 more just sitting and watching.
That is absolutely unheard of at all but one of the 75+ skateparks I’ve visited in the US. Two design choices support this level of public use.
First, the park is sunken into the site, and lined with ramps that encapsulate it into a bowl, with a pleasant tree-dotted lawn hilled around. This makes the park into an arena, as entertaining to watch as to use. Second, the placement of the park in a central Parque is a simple but bold decision. It is much more common in the US to place skateparks far from the city center.
As nice as the supportive design decisions for the skatepark are, I think that the excellent use of Bustamente park comes down to culture. Over the rest of the week I hope to search for the origins of that culture of rich public life, to find how to bring it to cities and skateparks of the US.