alternative hippopotamus

(The title of the post is an allusion to the Tony Hawk: Proving Ground computer game set partly in DC. I’m just saying it would be kinda fun if it extended to the DC urby-suburbs such as Bethesda and Silver Spring.)

Above is a picture of the sidewalk you’ll find for a stretch of about a mile north and south of Bethesda center on Wisconsin Ave. This has to be one of my favorite surfaces for skateboarding/longboarding anywhere in the District. I’m guessing it’s actual brick, but it could be a synthetic surface, as the ride is a lot smoother than cobblestone typically is. Note also that grain of the brick is at a 45 degree angle to the direction of motion. That means you don’t get that “ka-donkadong,ka-donkadonk” sound that you get on a sidewalk with standard-issue cracks. That also means that it’s less-likely you’ll get your front wheel caught in the flotsam and jetsam of urban debris. Not to mention the sad state of our area sidewalks.

I should also mention that my skateboard is using the same wheels I have on my longboard, 62mm/78a Kryptonics, so my ride is smoother than standard skateboard wheels, at the cost of the 180 degree spins I never plan to do.

What I really appreciate about the good people of Bethesda about for putting in this surface is that part of the fun of urban skateboarding is being able to use it to do every day things. Like getting from the Metro to shopping. And, to do it in style.

Which brings me to Silver Spring, that other great urban outpost of Montgomery County, MD. The refurbished city center of Silver Spring has something similar to Bethesda’s brick pavement, except they put some goop on top of it. I’m pretty sure that it’s to protect against the weather, but the effect is that it’s fantastic for skateboarding. Indeed, my earliest efforts at skateboarding were on these very sidewalks. The only drawback is that downtown Silver Spring is crowded pretty much all the time. So, you have to get your nerve up a bit, lest you wipe out on a downhill taking out hand-fulls of nearby pedestrians like so many bowling pins. That could be a bummer.

Alas, Elsworth Street, the one with all the shops and restaurants on it, forbids skateboarding. One day I hope that when skateboarding in DC becomes as organized as WABA, we’ll fight to take back streets like Ellsworth. Until then, I plan to stay bitter about it.

Yet, there’s some great places for skateboarding/longboarding in Silver Spring and its environs.

Before I go any further I want to thank the folks that put together silverspringtrails.org. Their site explained a number of things that had confused me for a number of years. While the trails they describe were probably put together with bicycling in mind, in many ways they’re better for skateboarding. The important thing is they put together a very useful and informative site. From across the internets, a hearty Thanks!

If you traipse across the vast expanse of the Silver Spring downtown from the Metro, you may have noticed that there is an asphalt path along with the faux cobblestone that I’m so fond of, going from Colesville Road up to Whole Foods. As I now understand, that’s the Green Trail, and eventually it will go out into the suburbs for another .7 miles where it will hopefully meet up with another trail.

Here, I really have to ask: whose idea was it for the Green Trail to pass in front of the entrance and exit to the Wayne Street garage? For the uninitiated, the Wayne Street garage is a 7 story lot shared by the shops, businesses, and Marriot Hotel of Silver Spring. It’s huge. And constantly busy. I’m just saying that if you haven’t seen anyone biking the Green Trail lately, it’s because it’s a suicide mission.

Now that I’ve got the Green Trail out of the way, I want to highlight a more vast project: the somewhat in progress Metropolitan Branch Trail. Here’s the concept: a refurbished transit center, described in this Washington Post article. Then, a bike (i.e., skateboarding) trail going from the transit center, mostly following the Red Line Metro into Union Station.

(I’ll pause here only to note that the current bus station, a major terminus in the Metro/Ride-On/MARC system, is the kind of thing that urban planners across the planet use as a bad example. It’s not really anyone’s fault, it just evolved over the years, as more people used the transit system, and as Georgia Ave., Colesville Road, 16th Street, and East West Highway became a substantial route for commuters, that the disaster unfolded.)

That’s right, before the long parenthetical I said a bike path going from Downtown Silver Spring to Union Station.

If you ride the Red Line, you can even see fits and starts of the path. The most substantial is the bit going from Montgomery College, Takoma Park to the Takoma Metro. That’s the path that I wiped out on last Spring. And, I’d do it again. It’s a really nice downhill stretch lasting, maybe, half a mile. There’s also a bit close to the New York Ave Metro stop that the homeless are starting to camp out on.

Here I’ll point out that as a skateboarder, I’m very excited by all this. As a bicyclist, I’m puzzled. Let me explain. The big problem, speaking as a bicyclist, is getting from Silver Spring to 14th Street. 14th Street has a very nice bike lane which takes you through U Street (very nice, indeed), close to Adams Morgan (again, very nice), and eventually to the Mall and environs (perfect for a weekend jaunt.) Getting from Silver Spring to Union Station would be very nice if I were a Supreme Court Justice who lived in Silver Spring. Of which there are none. It would also make sense if I could take my bike on Amtrak. The fact that I can’t, is just a bit of a sore point, by the way.

As a skateboarder, on the other hand, I want to be able to take the Metro somewhere, and then skateboard to places not well served by the Metro. So, as I say, I’m pretty excited.