Cape Town -
The City of Cape Town and the National Skateboarding Collective have established a task team that will meet monthly to come up with a “comprehensive strategy” to ensure the integration of skateboarding as a mode of transport in the city.
The task team will be chaired by Brett Herron, mayco member for transport, roads and stormwater, who said he had an “open mind” when it came to agreeing on a strategy to ensure skateboarding became a mode of transport and a form of recreation.
“If the agreed strategy requires some by-law amendments to implement it then we will have to look at that. I don’t foresee that the by-law will need amending.”
Herron said they would focus only on skateboarding and not on other non-motorised transport like cycling.
Last year, the city temporarily lifted a ban on skateboarding and cycling on Sea Point Promenade, and Herron said on Monday that a decision was yet to be taken on whether to reinstate the ban at the end of this month or not.
In the meantime, skaters have organised an event called Promenade Mondays where they meet for a sunset skate down the Sea Point promenade. Marco Morgan, a representative of the National Skateboarding Collective and organiser of Promenade Mondays, said he started the event to use the space when the ban was lifted.
“This was our way of saying, if you open this space we will occupy it and we have received a positive response… We have gone from 16 people in October to 150 people (at the most) skating on Promenade Mondays.”
Morgan said that they had also been lobbying different city departments for the past 18 months for the establishment of the task team, and he was glad to see it being finalised.
It would open communication lines between the city and skateboarders, so that they could, for example, give input about the location and design of skate-parks.
Herron said: “Specifically, this strategy will consist of the identification of skating facilities and the infrastructure requirements of skating within the city, the formulation of a mutually agreeable policy for the regulation of skateboarding, and the implementation of practical steps that accommodate the needs of both skaters and the general public.”
Cape Argus