Gig Harbor BMX park providing outdoor recreation opportunity during pandemic

Among the many things that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced into closing, outdoor recreation was no exception, with a cap on the number of people allowed to be in one area at a time.

Pierce County is still currently sitting in Phase 2 of Washington State’s Safe Start plan, meaning that citizens are still required to keep a social distance of at least six feet and to try to keep any gatherings of no more than five people outside the household per week.

But as more freedoms are relinquished back to residents, parks are being used again and enjoyed by the community. One such park is the BMX Park on Crescent Valley Drive.

“The BMX Park in Gig Harbor has been there for well over a decade,” said City of Gig Harbor Public Works Director Jeff Langhelm. “It is basically run and kept up and managed by volunteers. The city maintains it very little, the volunteers do most of it. We don’t have much for park rules, it’s really a ‘build your own track’ thing.”

The park stands as an area where people with the know-how and determination can build their own tracks for racing and jumps off of the natural vegetation.

In fact, the real responsibility laid on the City of Gig Harbor is managing the safety of the BMX Park. What they will do is make sure the site is being used properly for its intended purpose, clean back any overgrowth and clear off storm water built up on the park.

“It’s our property, we make sure it is kept in a safe condition but we don’t do the management,” Langhelm said. “It’s not like we form the jumps and make sure they’re kept in the same formation, we just let it be.”

Although there is no real way to track attendance in the park, there are no indications overcrowding has been an issue at the BMX Park. However, there have been issues with larger crowds gathering at the volleyball and tennis courts that share a space there as well.

And even though there aren’t any monitoring government officials out there, the City of Gig Harbor will still act on complaints sent into them.

“We mostly do self-policing based off complaints. If people start telling us that there are issues, typically our police department will go out there,” Langhelm said. “You never quite know if people doing active sports will tolerate having a mask on at the same time.”

There have not been many complaints about larger gatherings at the BMX Park. In fact Langhelm has not heard of any since around mid-July. But the city still wants to make sure that they are following the ordinance set forth by the state.

At the beginning of the stay-at-home order, the city made sure to take down any and all netting on both volleyball and tennis courts to dissuade anyone from playing on the courts.

Again, Phase 2 has allowed more freedoms but there is still a focus on safety for the patrons of the park.

“When we went into Phase 2, we had conversations with the users about how to be safe while playing and how to keep the numbers down,” Langhelm said. “They said they would abide, and so we ended up opening [the park] and from this point, we’ve just been on complaint based system.”

The other concern that the city and Langhelm has for the BMX Park as well as others in the area is keeping the restrooms clean. The beginning of the pandemic again forced places to close down and the City of Gig Harbor shut down the public bathrooms at their park sites.

Looking ahead to Phase 3, things should return to as close to normal as they can at the BMX Park. Mostly because the number of people that are allowed to gather for sports will bump from five to 50.

Hopefully, those that choose to gather will have a greater understanding of keeping their personal belongings clean and sanitary, as well as maintaining social distancing guidelines.

“I think Phase 3 the number was up to 50 people,” Langhelm said. “That’s pretty typical. Most groups that participate in any of the sports there are 50 or less so I’m sure we’ll be close to normal, if not back to normal when Phase 3 hits.”

This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 8:54 AM.