The Woodland Park dirt jumps are saved! Updated design concept shifts fields toward the parking lot instead

The original and updated concepts for Option A, from Seattle Public Schools.

The outpouring of support from BMX and mountain bike riders has saved the decades-old and community-maintained dirt jumps in Lower Woodland Park, a project planner for Seattle Public Schools told Seattle Bike Blog.

Greenlake BMX sounded the alarm in August that an early test fit" design concept for adding a new football field to Lower Woodland Park showed one of the fields on top of the dirt jumps and the adjacent walking and biking path. They started an online petition, which has 3,855 signatures as of press time, and organized an evening Bike Jump Jam that had a great turnout.

It wasn't too hard after seeing all that to put together a new plan over the last two weeks," said project manager Paige McGehee. They have added removing the dirt jumps to their list of non-viable options, she said. The walking and biking path will also be retained, and McGehee met with cross country organizers who use that path for courses.

The latest concept was inspired by an idea we posted on Seattle Bike Blog, McGehee said. Rather than displace the path and dirt jumps, the new design would shift the fields the other direction and use some space that is currently part of the endless parking lot along Green Lake Way N. As we wrote in our previous post, a beloved and active park use is more important than parking for cars, especially when there is so much parking already. Could the parking get full during busy times? Sure. So what? Our city is full of places to park cars, but we have almost no places to ride BMX jumps."

In addition to removing some parking, the design would also certainly require cutting down some trees. The original concept for Option A could maybe just barely keep those trees, though that isn't certain. The revised Option A definitely will need to remove them.

On the west side of the new fields, the sideline would encroach closer to the jumps and path than it is today, eating up much of the space that is currently a loose gravel pit with an old set of bleachers (pointed toward the jumps rather than the soccer field) where people hang out. Soccer teams on the sidelines would be closer to the jumps, but the path would still be between them. There is a demand for seating that faces the jumps, which is something for project planners to consider.

The fields are also constrained in the north-south dimension. On the north, the soccer field would be much closer to the skate park, though designs show a new ball-catching net to prevent balls from flying into the skating area. It's not clear how wide a path is possible, though there has to be some kind of pathway there. I would think ADA rules would require an accessible path of reasonable width, but I am definitely not an expert and don't know how those rules work into a project like this. Adding an accessible path between the parking area, crosswalks, the new facilities and the existing skate park and dirt jump area would be a great investment. It's kind of wild that these playfields don't have accessible paths since they are not that old. The fields are almost guarded by a moat of loose gravel as though we wanted to make sure chair users can't go there. I believe the path from the tennis courts and around the skate park is the only accessible way to get to the soccer field today, and it's in bad enough shape that it barely counts. Did Seattle Parks just not care about disabled athletes or disabled parents when they created these fields? It wasn't very long ago. It's an error worth correcting this time around.

On the south side of the proposed soccer field, it is not clear if there will be room for a path between the south goal and the left field fence of the baseball field, which is also getting a turf remake as part of a separate $302,000 Seattle Parks project. I'm sure right-handed batters would love if the fence came in a few feet, though pitchers might not be too thrilled. There's also a scoreboard and some light poles out there. Before anyone gets too angry at planners, be sure to acknowledge how difficult it is to squeeze playing fields into a city. Even the piles of dirt and gravel pits have uses, it turns out.

If folks are supportive of the new concept, they should probably make that known because there is sure to be resistance from folks concerned about car parking or cutting down the trees (though, again, it's not clear if those trees would have survived the earlier version, either). SPS has an online comment form. There will also be a public meeting 5:30 p.m. October 15. Location is TBD.

Other options

Option B as outlined in our previous post is still on the table, but it sounds very difficult to keep that one within the budget. We had some ideas for making it cheaper, but it's a tight fit for sure.

We asked about whether they could just extend the existing soccer field a few yards to create a multi-use field, which would certainly be the cheapest and easiest option. The issue is that the soccer field is already 100% booked, so if Lincoln athletics were to occupy significant blocks of time on the field they would displace a lot of other users.

If the new Option A also faces backlash, it could be worth considering splitting the project into two pieces: 1: A football field that can host sub-varsity games, and 2: A practice field. Goal 1 could be met by extending the existing soccer field a few yards and adding another set of lines. Then they could meet goal 2 by adding one or two undersized field spaces to one of the other sites under consideration, such as the gravel lot at 50th and Aurora from Option B. That lot is too small for a full-size field as it is, so they would need to cut into the hillside and build retaining walls and such. That's why Option B is so much more expensive. However, undersized fields could fit within the existing gravel lot footprint, and they could even avoid removing most the trees. Or they could reopen options much closer to the school like Wallingford Playfield or the Lincoln High School parking lot. Lincoln athletics could use those undersized spaces for practice, reducing the amount of time they need to book the newly-extended Lower Woodland Park field. Youth and other field sports that don't need a full-size field could also use those new undersized fields when they are not in use by the school, which could offset any loss of booking time on the existing field. An undersized field could also make Wallingford Playfield a more appealing option since it wouldn't occupy the whole damn field. Maybe they could add a dog park, too, since there's clearly a big demand for that in the area. Or my favorite option would be to replace the school parking lot.

Dirt jump history

The dirt jumps and the Lower Woodland Park playfields are linked by history. In a recent Seattle Times story about the Bike Jump Jam, Daniel Beekman dug up a 1990s Seattle Times article about how the jumps came to be. When building the playfields, Seattle Parks dumped all the excess dirt from excavation into an unused area next to a wooded hillside by the tennis courts. BMX riders saw an opportunity to turn that literal dumping ground into a set of bike jumps. The 90s article also notes that this is not the first time riders have had to rally to save the jumps. Because they had made them from discarded fill dirt, the Parks Department came by one day and hauled a bunch of the dirt away for some other project. Riders got organized and made their case to the Green Lake Community Council and the City Council. After some pressure from Councilmember Sue Donaldson, the Parks Department found some dirt elsewhere and delivered it to the site.

The old story also mentions one way the new project could help bike jumpers: Point a field light or two at the jumps. People already ride them at night because some light spills over from the nearby field, but a little extra light could go a long way, especially during Seattle's long winters.