Life on the handrails

I am sorry that, once again, everyone and their mom here at the UA must find some hot problem to attack. Now the ASUA Bookstore wants to make some big statement by modifying the handrails out front to deter skateboarders. As a local skateboarder and aggressive in-line skater, I am impressed. So impressed that I want to point out some flaws in their big, bad statement.

The modifications made to the handrails cost in the range of $2,500. The original handrails only cost a couple hundred dollars. It is fascinating how much the powers that be spent to "protect" the handrails from "those skaters," especially when only a fresh coat of paint was needed to repair the handrails. The fresh coat of paint would only be a routine seasonal maintenance at a cost of probably fifty dollars or less.

The point is, our bookstore installed the new handrails just to make a statement about skateboarders. Little do they realize their big $2,500 statement only affects the 10 to 20 percent of skaters that can grind handrails. Furthermore, I have noticed here in the first weeks of this change that there are already grind marks where skaters are already learning to grind the edges of the new construction.

I would also like to say that if the UA, as well as the city of Tucson, would make an effort to produce a "quality" public skate park or skate area, they would have a diminished problem. I would like to note there is a skate park and when it was first made it was nice and everyone skated there. People rarely talked about skating at the university because the skate park was so much better.

Unfortunately the Skate Park does not get enough money for adequate repairs. The budget is so low they can barely afford to get it seasonally painted. Ramps and rails at the park have deteriorated over time. Now the park sucks and the university has a problem. If the Bookstore could have donated that $2,500 to the Skate Park, they could have saved the hundreds of rails on this campus rather than making a big statement with their couple of rails.

One last word. When I skate, like many others, my goal is not to damage property. Nevertheless, even if I am traveling somewhere, I cannot do it without harassment. Rolling somewhere, I get stopped by UAPD, yelled at by university employees and followed like some sort of criminal.

We skateboarders are stereotyped. Critics often say we are menacing, stupid, impolite, disrespectful and drug-heads. I am none of these things but I have been called all of the foregoing at my own college.

So many of you want to make your big statements but in the end you are spinning your wheels in the sand.

Lucas P. Boring
Mechanical engineering freshman