A "snake run" on Mud Island...what?

The Snake run came up as a suggested feature at the last Phase I Mud Island River park public meeting hosted by the Consiliency group on April 2nd. To get a full break down on what goes on at these meetings please see this post.

The meeting was at the Botanical gardens and about 120 people attended the event. My conservative estimate is that around 80% of the participants were supporters of the skate park.

Not surprisingly the skate park feature was voted as the overwhelming favorite receiving about 180 votes.

The second closest was the "Snake run" feature. It recieved about 100 votes and all other features did not even come close to these top two.

If you love surfing, skiiing, snowboarding, roller blading or roller skating than you are going to love a Snake run!

What is a snake run?

A snake run is a serpentine curvy-linear pattern that looks like the tracks you would see being made by a snake. It's basically a continous trail of "figure-eights.'
A snake run is a windy river-like concrete trail of interconnected curvy- linear shapes that are typically 3-6 feet in height. It can be above or below the ground. Here is a link to the oldest existing snake run built in the 1970's in Kona Florida:

What makes the snake run different then skate ramps?

The serpentine motion generated in the snake run provides the addictive or hypnotic thrilling motion that people experience and crave while skiing, surfing, skating or snowboarding. It's hard to explain unless you have experienced it but it keeps people coming back again and again.

The snake run is a unique design that allows a person to generate and maintain their own momentum without ever having to take their feet off the board. The design provides the energy when the rider's motion becomes in sync with the frequency of the turns.

This run could be used by roller bladers, bikers and skateboarders while perhaps having a normal walking path with trees and benches adjacent to it so that people could enjoy watching participants whiz by. I was envisioning this being called the Mississippi snake run and having it patterned after the river.

A transport path to the skate park!

It was suggested that a "snake run" would be a visually creative and dynamic path for propelling skate park visitors from the River park parking lot to the skate park area on the South tip of the Island.

We'll see how all this works out!

Come to the Phase II meetings if you can. The success of these projects depends on public support so come and join us!