A participant takes a ride at a Slide the City event in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2014.
A Slip ‘n Slide about to be sent on a cross-continent summer tour is expected to splash into more than a dozen Canadian cities, while facing opposition elsewhere for the excessive use of water.
And could Canada’s recent spate of bubble wrapping – which has put city toboggan hills in peril – spell trouble for the travelling slide show?
Slide The City announced in mid-January a plan to launch a world tour, bringing a 1,000-foot horizontal vinyl water slide to 150 cities around the globe.
At the moment, the company has scores of North American destinations marked on their website’s map including 17 Canadian locations, from Vancouver Island to Fort McMurray to Mississauga, and all the major venues in between.
Only a few of the Canadian events have a scheduled event date. But organizers are already accepting registrations and rallying volunteers for every event.
"We spend so much time walking, running, or driving around our cities," co-founder TR Gourley said in a statement. “But how many times have you been able to say you slid down your city streets?”
The travelling slide is said to be 1,000 feet, or 300 metres, long; or about three football fields. It is inflated, and doused with water. Sliders then mount inner tubes, insert provided mouth guards and wind their way down the sloped path.
Water guns are encouraged, splashing is celebrated. Speed is the name of the game.
"Usain Bolt will be green with envy once he sees how fast you can cover that much ground," the organizers vow on the Slide the City website. "Oh and in case you were wondering, our slide was made right here in the good ole US of A and travels with us throughout the country. We like to think of ourselves as carney workers, without the mullets and the missing teeth."
Petition started to dry up the fun
While some surely celebrate the opportunity to live out a childhood summer favourite on a grander scale, others have already balked at the event.
A Slide the City event planned for San Francisco is facing opposition from a local activist who calls it a waste of water.
"California is entering another year of drought and many of us within the state are taking necessary steps to conserve water," reads a petition posted by Paul Duffy. It now has just over 900 signatures.
"[T]here is no explanation for how much water will be used per event nor does the company make any attempt to explain where the water will come from."
Slide the City spokesman John Malfatto told Yahoo Canada News that one event uses as much as 20,000 gallons of water, but the vast majority of that is taken to a recycling facility or used to water city parks.
It’s not the first time Slide The City has been tripped up. Last year, an event in downtown Los Angeles was refused a permit. It is not clear why the permit was refused, but it came amid a state-wide drought and while facing a petition that opposed the mass use of water then, too.
But instances of drought aside, the amount of water used at one Slide The City event isn’t likely to derail a Canadian event. The amount has been compared to the amount used to water one hole at a city golf course for one day, or the amount of H2O lost to evaporation at a city-owned swimming pool over the course of a year.
Won’t someone think of the children?
There is also the question of safety – especially pertinent in Canada, where the fun police have recently taken aim at backyard skating rinks and toboggan hills in city parks.
Officials in Edmonton are currently considering whether to approve the event – which has been scheduled for June. (Other Alberta events have been scheduled in Calgary on Aug. 1, and in Fort McMurray later that month.)
Mayor Don Iveson told CTV News they were still considering the issues of “safety liability, access, connectivity, and public safety.”
Organizers were contacted to discuss their safety measures and permit requirements, but did not respond before publication. But considering their self-description as a travelling carnival, they would likely need to secure city permits to operate an amusement ride.
In Toronto, for example, such permits are only provided to groups that have proper insurance and safety certification. And based on their plan to run the slide down a city street, they would also need to secure a street closure permit.
They do seem to have the matter sorted, from a legal perspective at least.
Every participant is asked to sign an extensive waiver, in which they acknowledge that, “The risk of injury, illness, disability and/or death from the activities involved in the Event is significant,” and assume complete responsibility for what happens.
These permits, security measures and safety waivers should put the Slide The City events above the current debate about recreational safety. So it could be just a matter of paperwork before a city near you becomes the site of a blocks-long summer tube ride.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...show-aiming-to-hit-17-canadian-181614040.html