CITY SLIPS ON SLIDES
For the second time in three years, a slide at the playground on St. Patrick’s Island has been closed over safety concerns. It won’t reopen, and a new feature will be added.
Children’s slides are not the forte of the agency charged with the $357-million makeover of Calgary’s East Village, they admit.
“We’re getting out of the slide business,” said Susan Veres, spokeswoman for the Calgary Municipal Land Corp., which for the second time in three years has had to shutter a slide on St. Patrick’s Island due to complaints from fretting parents.
“Despite our best efforts, and much to my chagrin, we can’t seem to get slides right.”
It’s been a rough ride for the CMLC and kids who flocked to the inner-city oasis to play at the throwback park featuring play structures built primarily from wood, rocks and ropes.
Soon after the park’s opening in 2015, the first reports of kids suffering burned backsides on the south-facing metal slide surfaced, prompting a quick shutdown while officials devised a system of sun-blocking shades to keep the slide cool.
However, playground-goers began using the shades as impromptu hammocks, prompting a $100,000 retrofit last year to the then-two-year-old park, which among other upgrades replaced the sometimes scorching metal slide with a concrete chute alongside a rock-strewn incline, a prime attraction for ambitious climbers.
But Veres noted that while the new slide was better suited to older kids, younger park enthusiasts were also keen to hop on the new concrete slide, which in some cases propelled them a bit too quickly to the gravel-covered landing below.
“That slide was intended for children between eight and 12, but younger kids are going to go on it. And smaller kids can go quite fast,” she said.
“So we had some parents complaining.”
Now, less than a year after the new concrete chute was unveiled, it’s been boarded over to prevent access — a sign informing disappointed park-goers: “Our slide is closed so we can make improvements.”
It’s been shuttered for at least three weeks.
But any improvements, Veres said, won’t be of the sliding variety.
“We’re looking at different things now, like can we convert it into a climbing structure,” she said.
“We’ve definitely learned a lot through this process.”
Veres noted the alterations to last year’s park makeover won’t cost the agency any additional funds and will be covered through the budget from the initial renovation.
She said it’s still too early to determine timelines for the slide’s replacement.