Marina will become the first city in Monterey County to build a pump track.

Six years in the making and two proposed locations later, the city of Marina has finally approved the construction of a pump track, a first for Monterey County. Pump tracks, which can be ridden by cyclists of all ages, are a circuitous loop of dirt berms and small mounds called “rollers.” If a rider hits the dips and curves right, pumping their body to maximize momentum and harness gravity, they can ride the track without even pedaling.

On Nov. 2, Marina City Council approved putting the project out to bid, with an estimated budget of $1.6 million (with $177,952 from grant funding), a far cry from the proposed $30,000 dirt pump track that two members of the Monterey Off Road Cycling Association brought before city council in 2015.

“It’s the reality,” Mayor Bruce Delgado says of the price tag. “If you want a place that’s a destination, and a place that’s safe and a place that’s high caliber, you don’t get that cheaply.”

The track will be located at Gloria Jean Tate Park, just east of Highway 1 and north of Reservation Road, and unlike the pump track MORCA members proposed in 2015, Marina’s will be paved, which is easier to maintain and is also accessible to skateboarders or kids riding scooters. Marina Public Works Director Brian McMinn says the earliest the improvements to the park – which also include a restroom, ADA-compliant parking and more – would be sometime next summer.

Delgado calls the track “much larger and much grander” than the 2015 proposal, and it is something he hopes will give a boost to Marina’s downtown.

“It’s regional in its draw,” Delgado says, “and our families are crying out for more recreation.”

Darius Rike, a MORCA member who proposed the track in 2015 and who’s been working with the city on the vision in the years since, is psyched the track is finally set to become a reality. “A typical pump track takes five years, and we’re at six years now,” Rike says, but he applauds the city’s efforts thus far. “I think they did a really good job with the design.”

Marina’s pump track will essentially be three different tracks, two of which will intersect in the middle, and one smaller track set apart for beginners. McMinn says additional amenities, like bike racks and a bike repair station, could potentially be added to the project if the bids to build the track itself come back low enough.

Cristina Medina Dirksen, a Marina council member who’s been a big proponent of the track, describes her excitement as “off the charts,” and is thrilled her triplet 12-year-old daughters will be able to ride there from home.

“I’ve been living here 20-plus years seeing that site off the freeway, and seeing such potential, and I’m just thrilled we have the ability to move this project forward,” Medina Dirksen says. “It’s long overdue to have something new for our youth to do.”

That became even more clear, she says, during Covid. “Any excuse to get [my daughters] out of the house, I’m on board, and I think a lot of parents feel that.”