Boo Bike Track

[[biketrailsign.jpg|]]

This sign was up for the 'opening day', 1 July 2023. Click for enlargement. How long it take before some idiot tags it?

Snap from the start platform, from the City webpage. This angle doesn't convey the feeling of danger inspired by the 'wall of death' on the left, the beginning of the black, difficult track.

History

The mountain bike track is between Boo Park and the Royal Fremantle Golf Course, in an area considered not suitable either for golf or walking. I believe kids saw the potential for a downhill ride with jumps and simply made it themselves—as early as 2018. The Council saw the PR potential and took ownership of the idea and obtained cash support—which until then hadn't seemed necessary.

In the last month of 2019, the mayor, Brad Pettitt, announced a 'plan' to 'establish' mountain bike trails. (ref. below) The trails had been in existence from the top of the hill right down to Stevens Street for at least a year, and possibly two—so for the council to claim the idea as its own new development is simply dishonest. (In fact, the Fremantle Society proposed a 'bicycle track' for the Park as long ago as 1993! Ref. below.)

I don't understand, given the Council's alleged beneficent attitude, why the gates at the bottom and top of the track were always padlocked—so that the kids had to lift their bikes over the fence at some point. Which is not good for the fence, among other things, not to mention the little kids.

UPDATE 7 August 2019. The FCC Manager of Parks has 'clarified' the position: "The fencing and gates are a requirement of the Site Management Plan as we are required to restrict access to this area. We still need to comply with this requirement until we get the track built." In other words: "You can't have your track. You can have ours, but not until we're ready to give it to you".

Photos above show the top and bottom gates. The one below shows the middle gate (which is opposite the gate to the 'back' of the amphitheatre). If there were a chain and padlock, they have now (19 August 2019) been taken away, and the gate is open. So the other gates might as well be open also.

Mid-September 2019 the top gate is locked open:

... which must have done by someone with the key of the padlock - so is it officially open? However, the bottom gate is still padlocked, so just what is management's line?

The confusion continues:

Now (17 October 2019) the middle gate is padlocked, but ...

... a few metres away someone has pulled out a fence-post.

I guess that makes it the Council's move.

I presume this is all about insurance and liability. Perhaps the Council could deal with it by putting up a sign saying something along the lines of ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, and stop worrying about fences and locked gates, which just makes them look silly.

I went as near as I could get to the new track on 15 April 2023, before it was finished, to find it in joyful use by four kids. I managed to get this snap.

About 14 May 2023, the workmen disappeared, and the track was suddenly in use – without any announcement of which I'm aware. No doubt the mayor will turn up with the local pollies and a couple of East Ward councillors sooner or later.

... About the same time as I was writing that this morning, Wednesday 17 May, the mayor and the local state member of parliament were at the track for a photo op fors the media. So I guess it's now 'open'.

And here's a snap from the afternoon of the same Wednesday of a rider on the same bit of track as above.

References and Links

A summary of a Fremantle Society submission re the development of the 'Montreal Street Open Space', as it was then called, prepared by Trevor Knowles, is in the newsletter for October 1993. It's striking to see that a 'bicycle track' is in the 'highly desirable' category. The FS may not have had in mind a challenging bike track, but perhaps just paved paths like those that now exist in the body of the Park—but it was at least thinking of cycling for exercise if not organised sport.

Roel Loopers, 'Mountain bike trails for Booyeembara park', freoview, 7 May 2019.

Brad Pettitt, 'Boo Park mountain bike trails move to the next phase', Mayor's blog, 18 December, 2019.

Freotopia

This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 5 August, 2019 and hosted at freotopia.org/parks/boo5/index.html (it was last updated on 7 July, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.