Back to School Transportation Chaos Lessened With Innovative Board & Scooter Parking Solution
IOC’s inclusion of skateboarding in 2020 Olympic Games
recognizes boarding’s growing popularity among youth
(Sacramento, CA) — As skateboards, longboards and scooters cruise alongside the bicycle in the world of human-powered alternative transportation, schools and universities are presented with a challenge as to where students can safely store their ride of choice without creating a liability.
Add the excitement of the International Olympic Committee’s approval of skateboarding on August 3, 2016 for inclusion as an official sport in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and campuses are all but guaranteed an even greater influx of boards than already is occurring. IOC President Thomas Bach said in an official press release that the committee recognized “established and emerging” sports such as boarding as a popular option available to youth.
Fortunately for campuses across the nation, the perfect solution comes in the form of the SkateDock™ by Ground Control Systems. The SkateDock™ offers an innovative parking solution that is orderly, functional, lockable and both board and scooter friendly. More than 300 well-prepared US campuses already are utilizing Ground Control Systems’ parking solutions effectively, as detailed in an informational video by Ground Control Solutions.
Teachers and school administrators began to recognize that providing bicycle parking was not enough and the generational choice to use long boards, skateboards and scooters was something to be embraced and managed, not forbidden. Instead of banning them, schools began addressing the real problem, which was where to put them once they got to school or class.
“It’s important that we provide board and scooter parking on campus, because a lot of students rely on them to get to school, just like bikes,” said Shirley Reuben, an office administrator at a large Las Vegas, Nevada high school. “The SkateDock tower solved that and helps the kids take on the responsibility for locking them up.”
New educational signage accompanies the SkateDock™ to not only help a campus’ required use of docks for storage, but also educate students to take personal responsibility to “Dock It and Lock It™.”
Ground Control System’s CEO Greg Bauer said the education and enforcement component of their SkateDock™ offering is consistent with the company’s big-picture approach to provide orderly and secure parking solutions, not simply a product.
“We recognized that there is growing acceptance of boards and scooters as transportation, which in turn creates the very real problem of liability and safety in classrooms and on campuses,” said Ground Control Systems’ CEO Greg Bauer. “Helping solve that problem for schools and getting kids to use the parking responsibly was another challenge, and we think “Dock It and Lock It™” is an effective message to help with the educational process. And the beauty of it is that it applies to both bike docks and board docks in the provision of secure, space efficient parking.”
Ground Control Systems recommends the SkateDock™ be installed within 50 feet of building entrances for high visibility. Reinforced steel rings pivot enabling the user to attach or detach a padlock and be on their way. The SkateDock™’s patented angled V-trough design allows users to lock and unlock scooters and boards on the same rack at the same time.
Ground Control Systems has been designing and manufacturing orderly parking solutions for decades. Expert engineers and planners offer CAD drawings, spec and tech sheets and other product information in downloadable format from the Ground Control Systems website.