Slippery slopes: the tumultuous tale of boards, blades and bikes.

Skateparks have exploded onto the recreation scene. But instead of celebrating, communities nationwide are being ripped apart with growing concerns over liability and open access for bicyclists--the lark in an otherwise perfect plan for recreation programming. Now, park officials are caught in the middle of an unexpected battle, having to decide if they want to be inclusive or exclusive with their offerings.

In one New Jersey town, the park advisory committee has become the enforcer of its 3-year-old skatepark. The Hillsborough Township skatepark was never constructed to accommodate bicyclists, only skateboarders and inline skaters, But no one told the two-wheeled foe that the idea they had originally presented with the skateboarders, would exclude them from the right to use the park. The reason for the discrimination was that New Jersey's joint insurance fund would not cover bicycle activities in skateparks because of the added liability, says New Jersey Recreation and Park Association Executive Director Bill Foelsch. "Unfortunately, in the process of approval to go ahead with this facility, we did not adequately keep the biking group advised that they would he excluded because of the insurance requirements."

Even though bikers use the park on occasion, Foelsch says they are considered outlaws. "While solving a community problem with inappropriate skateboard use in our commercial district, we may have created a sub-group of bicycle users that must continue to violate local ordinances in pursuit of a legitimate place to ride," he says.

But banning bicyclists can fuel enough resentment for action. In February, a group of local bicyclists won the right to access Martha's Vineyard Skatepark, in Oak Bluffs, Mass. The fledgling group was able to convince their parks commission that banning bikers from the newly built skatepark was a violation of a state recreational statute--something that trumped any possible liability problems associated with bikes.

With 1,000 active skateparks in the nation, and another 2,000 expected within the next couple of years, the issue of multi-use skateparks is only beginning to emerge. So what should park and recreation departments do?

Heidi Lemmon is the thunder of the Skate Park Association of the United States of America (SPAUSA), and along with her activism for building public skateparks, she is also advocating for them to become multi-use facilities. "It's time for recreation to step up to what the kids want to do," she says.

Many of the claims that bikes are more destructive and pose a risk to skateboarders and inline skaters if allowed to ride in the same park are unfounded and prejudicial, she says. "We have been surveying parks for several years and have not come up with any evidence that they cause any more wear and tear than skateboarders or inline skaters," Lemmon writes on her Web site, www.spausa.org.

She also points out that if a park is too small to allow both users to access it at the same time, then park officials should create sessions for the bikers and the skateboarders. If liability is an issue, there are other insurance companies, outside of joint state agencies, such as SPAUSA and the Police Activities League (PAL), which will cover up to $1 million in liability for multi-use skateparks, she says, adding that PAL usually supplies an officer at the park to help supervise.

According to www.accessbmx.com, a Web site devoted to creating more access for bicyclists, there are more than 7 million bike riders in the United States. Add to this number the 11.6 million skateboarders the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association published in its 2001 report on sports participation, and park and recreation departments are faced with a multimillion participant population that keeps escalating.

Dangerous Pursuits

But the possibility of accidents and undue damage resulting in excess cost are the major reasons many park and recreation departments are reluctant to allow bicyclists into existing skateparks.

Ruth Schumi, service area coordinator for the St. Paul Division of Parks and Recreation, only allows skateboarders and inline skaters into her skatepark, which opened in June 2003, because "a flying bike is much more dangerous than a flying skateboard."

Even in California, where the skatepark mentality should be welcoming to all types of wheels, there is still hesitance. Chico's skatepark is multi-use, but Resources Planning and Management Recreation Consultant Fred A. Brooks says bike pegs and other metal parts tend to chip away at the concrete surfacing of their skatepark and its ramps, in addition to causing added expense for supervision and maintenance. "I have witnessed accidents that could have easily been fatalities when these areas were used at the same time by bikers and skaters," Brooks says.

Accidents may happen, but it is more a matter of learning the rules of a skatepark than putting the blame on one user group, says Mat Hoffman, a professional stunt bicyclist who rides with skateboarding icon Tony Hawk.

"Before cities kind of got interested in building parks ... most private parks are all multi-use. So it's basically just park etiquette that the new people need to learn," says Hoffman, who owns his own bike company, Hoffman Bikes. "It's like learning how to drive, you have to be able to see other skaters' and bikers' lines, and be able to ride the park accordingly to keep everybody sale and keep the flow."

Hoffman adds that capping bike pegs, which are extended spokes located on the back wheels, and other parts of the bike with plastic may protect the park and its ramps, but nothing will prevent the excess damage if the park is not initially designed properly, he says. "It really comes down to the person building the park and it being designed so it can withstand all abuse that any apparatus can do to it," he says.

Portland Parks and Recreation in Oregon is currently in the design and planning stages of nine to 13 skateparks to be built over the next 16 years. Project Manager Rod Wojtanik realizes the parks will need to serve more than one function, and so he is doing research on what types of materials be will need to withstand the abuse of skateboards, bikes and reline skates. Understanding that bicyclists are struggling to find areas to use, Wojtanik says, "I want to try to tackle this right at the beginning."

Regardless if skateparks are going to be above ground or in-ground, concrete or wood; steel coping will be needed for all the edges, Wojtanik says, adding that he is looking into a schedule 40 steel coping with a four-inch plate on top of the coping to absorb the shock of bike pegs. A higher-per-square-inch-strength concrete will also be needed--about 3,500-4,000--to prevent chipping of the surface, be says. All these additions do increase the overall cost of a skatepark by 10-15 percent, Wojtanik estimates.

George Fogg, the senior consultant of the Bonita Springs Parks and Recreation Department's multi-use skatepark in Florida, says the main features to accommodate the different user groups include a 10-foot half pipe, reinforced steel coping, a wood shell and a specially poured concrete surface that boasts a 1.25 percent pitch with side drains (see more about multi-use design in the sidebar on this page). The extra-smooth concrete is durable enough to take extra abuse from bikes, skateboards and inline skaters.

"You can run a tank on that stuff," says Fogg, who cautions park and recreation departments not to ignore bicyclists when designing skateparks, because they will inevitably use the facility. "If you don't design for maintenance, it becomes a mess very quickly," he says.

Duel-Use Dilemma

Designing aside, there is still concern over whether skateparks should even be considered multi-use facilities, or should be relegated to individual use. Inline skaters can basically skate anything, so it collies down to the bikers and the skateboarders. Do they really belong together?

"People in the skateboard business and the bike business say that the two don't mix," says Jack Campbell, director of the Bonita Springs Parks and Recreation Department, which just opened its $750,000 multi-purpose skatepark. In an effort to include everyone in the community who helped Campbell's department during the design process, there will be different sessions for the bikes and skateboards, he says.

Sheila Butts, assistant director for the Lexington Recreation Department in Massachusetts, is currently toying with the idea of separate sessions for her above-ground skatepark, which opened last spring. "When you have all these kids out here, someone is not paying attention," Butts cites as her main reason for not allowing the two user groups to mix. "I don't want some little kid run over. We're not trying to be ogres, we're just thinking that we don't want them to get hurt."

Even bicycling guru Hoffman agrees to sessions, if it means giving access to bicyclists. "If there are too many people in the park, then there needs to be special sessions," he says, adding that sessions can have a limited number of participants, and when that session fills up, the users will have to wait for the next session.

SPAUSA founder Lemmon says if bikers and skateboarders are each given parts of the skatepark to design, they will usually stay on their side of the park, preventing any possible collisions or crashes.

Playground Politics

Even if skateparks are designed properly, and sessions are given to each user group, resentment may still brew throughout the user groups. Hoffman attributes this to playground politics. "They want territory and I think that's influenced a lot of the animosity that was started by segregating the disciplines in the community and not letting them all be invited and welcome to the park," Hoffman says. "It's kind of steamrolled to where now it's more of a territorial ... issue than it really is a damage or liability issue."

The political issue is difficult to define, as none of the experts can identify a clear reason why the two groups cannot get along--or whether it is even a national concern.

Lemmon thinks park and recreation departments can either add to the problem or erase possible contention. "It's the tone that you set," she says, adding that cities that exercise zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, usually don't have a problem with multi-use skateparks. "It's educating them about human rights," she says.

Portland Parks and Recreation Project Manager Wojtanik agrees. "Departments are about being inclusive, not exclusive," he says. But, he doesn't think the two groups help the situation either by voicing their frustrations publicly. "It's tough enough to find a home for these things and then when the user groups don't get along, it makes things harder."

Hoffman hopes these issues will fade an more education and information is circulated on the importance of building multi-use facilities. "I would think in the future, as the community has a lot of skateboard enthusiasts, a lot of bike enthusiasts, a lot of inline enthusiasts ... that they see that they're building these parks for the community and not just one discipline of the community," he says.

For more information about multi-use parks, here are a few Web sites that can give information on starter kits, insurance contacts and background information.

www.accessbmx.com--Includes starter kits, BMX facts and other materials in favor of multi-use parks.

www.bmxriders.org--Informational Web site that also includes a list of multi-use parks nationwide.

www.genesbmx.com/BMXand Skateparks.html--Includes editorial, commentary, facts and figures on the bike and board controversy, Also has helpful links to other Web sites for more information.

Designing for Multi-Use Parks

Action Sports Parks have pretty much the same foundations, materials and components, except they are usually constructed to withstand a larger volume of abuse. "The modular builders are being asked to do that more often than concrete park builders," says Brett Barrick, brand manager of Huna Designs, which has been designing multi-use parks for more than 20 years, and specializes in modular skate park components. The flexibility of modular components allows for less maintenance costs because it is easier to repair one portion of a skatepark, than replace an entire section such as a bowl or wall.

George Fogg, who was the senior designer of the recently opened multi-use skatepark in Bonita Springs, Fla., agrees. "You have to design so it can be readily maintenanced and easy to operate," says Fogg.

Barrick says stunt bike riders, or freestyle Bicycle Motocross (BMX) riders, prefer higher transition sections of skateparks, such as street spines and larger half pipes, because they can use those ramps to jump higher and perform more complicated tricks. Having a greater distance between start ramps and jump areas helps create speed or bigger "airs," Barrick says, which is something the BMX riders also enjoy.

Mat Hoffman, a professional bicyclist who has ridden on both modular and in-ground concrete skateparks, says the above-ground, moveable skateparks were initially the training ground for his sport. "That's where all the private parks have existed in our world because it's more affordable to build and it's more maintainable," he says. "That's really been our stage for developing our skills." But Hoffman does prefer in-ground concrete parks to "play around in."

While both skateboarders and bicyclists enjoy air distance and speed, the current trend for skateboarders is street skating. "Successful skatepark designs should incorporate banks and stairs, and rails ad ledges for grinding to simulate street skating experiences," says Barrick.

An ideal size for a multi-use park is 15,000 square feet or greater, Barrick says, adding that separate sessions should be required to prevent possible collisions. But, he adds, "Inline skaters, BMX riders and skaters all have lower incidence ratings than your standard sports."

Maya Avrasin is Parks & Recreation's associate editor She can he reached at [e-mail].