NORTHAMPTON — The room on the second floor of the Northampton Music Center reached standing-room only on Monday night as the Northampton Cycling Club hosted a public forum on bringing a pump track to the city.

A pump track is a course designed for cyclists that features numerous inclines, known as “rollers” as well as raised corners known as “berms.” The course is designed so that bikers can ride it powered by their own momentum rather than pedaling, a practice known as “pumping.” In addition to bikes, skateboards and scooters also can be used on the track.

At the Monday meeting, Northampton Cycling Club Co-President Jonathan Brody said the idea of bringing a pump track to the city was born out of his experience he and his family of two children went through during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were looking for activities to do during that very difficult time,” Brody said. “We got out to different skate parks and other parks around the valley, and [we] found that some were more friendly than others.”

Brody and the cycling club successfully applied for federal American Rescue Plan Act grant, receiving $20,000 in order to conduct a feasibility study on bringing a pump track to Northampton. Carlos Nieto, a landscape architect with the Berkshire Design Group, performed the study and presented his findings before those gathered on Monday. Nieto said he was drawn to the project because he himself was an avid cyclist.

“I’ve ridden road bikes, mountain bikes, BMX ... I’m definitely a person who would like to see a pump track built in Northampton that I can go in at lunchtime when I want to take a break,” Nieto said. “It definitely hit me in my heart when they called me first.”

Two locations were considered for the prospective pump track: Sheldon Field, located off Bridge Street near the Northampton Airport and Three County Fairgrounds, and Veterans Field, located near Smith College. The latter was ultimately chosen, citing its close proximity to downtown, location along the city’s bike trail and an existing skate park that already attracts potential users of a future pump track.

According to the presentation shown by Nieto, the estimated cost to build the track is around $400,000, with the money needed for construction, permitting and drainage installation, among other things. The money would be sourced through a fundraising campaign by the Northampton Cycling Club and other grant applications.

“That sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money,” Nieto said. “But I work in the business of building parks, and this is very comparable to a playground. This is very comparable to a pickleball court. This is very comparable to any other use that uses basically the same amount of space. So this is not out of the [ordinary].”

During the meeting, members of the public also asked questions and expressed both concerns about and approvals of the prospective pump track. Patricia Wachter, who lives near Veterans Field, said she had worries over building the track when the area was known to have homeless encampments in the past.

“If this goes through, has the city committed to you using the property? Are they committed to cleaning up the park and making the bathroom accessible?” Wachter said. “I don’t have a problem for people using the park in a way that really welcomes all generational change. I really want you to hear that this site has social problems that need to be addressed.”

In response, Brody said the cycling club was committed to making sure the city and nearby neighbors of the park would be heavily involved in the maintaining of the park and the track.

“We’ll reach out to the Division of Community Care and other city officials and raise these matters and start to talk about these issues and how they can be addressed, to kind of start to get at these systemic matters that are impacting everybody,” Brody said.

Tara Dumont, a Northampton mother of three boys, said she saw the pump track as a way to bring both new life to the park and more families to the area.

“I really see this as an opportunity for the whole town to jump start and revitalize something that could be very meaningful,” Dumont said. “It would help give the town a little wake up call that they’re really not utilizing a good chunk of land that is right along the bike path.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.