Skateboarders aim to flip commuter bans

By Jon Ostendorff and Joel Burgess, USA TODAYASHEVILLE, N.C. — To most, skateboarding is a sport featuring half-pipes and high-flying riders performing daredevil tricks.To Ryan Seymour, it represents something much more basic: transportation. He would like to commute to his job managing the city-run Food Lion Skatepark in downtown Asheville, from his apartment in the nearby Montford neighborhood.

"It's really the commute home that would be more fun," he said. "It's all downhill."

Though it might be fun, Seymour knows that trying it could currently mean a $50 fine and an appearance in the city's nuisance court.

Skateboarders in Asheville and across the USA are pushing to end such bans so they can legally use longboards — a more stable type of skateboard than those typically used for skate park tricks — as a means of transportation.

The debate is heating up along with gas prices and a national interest in going green. Supporters stress that the boards don't take up parking spaces and are easily stored inside, unlike bicycles. Opponents point to safety concerns.

"I feel the overall public safety risks of adding a new element to our city roads outweighs the desire for a group of folks to see the legalization of this alternative transportation mode," said Bill Russell, a member of the Asheville City Council and chair of its Public Safety Committee.

Other council members feel differently. Gordon Smith said he supports the "four wheels down" concept of legalizing skateboards strictly for transportation, and Cecil Bothwell called the idea "a viable transportation alternative."

Jeff Stern, president of the National Skateboard Association in Westlake Village, Calif., said setting rules for how people use skateboards is "ridiculous."

Laws involving skateboards as transportation vary.

•In 2009, Kennesaw State University, north of Atlanta, banned skateboarding in most places on campus but allowed it for transportation to and from class.

•City leaders in Portland, Maine, lifted a ban on skateboarding as transportation downtown three years ago, but re-enacted it in 2009 on hilly Exchange Street after business owners complained about trick riders, Lt. Gary Rogers of the Portland Police Department said. Skateboarding is legal in other parts of the city, he said.

•Last summer, Pennsylvania's Doylestown Borough Council heard a request to lift the skateboarding ban to allow longboards as transportation. The measure failed because leaders were worried about accidents with cars.

"For myself, it's odd that a child can go and ride on an aluminum scooter and not face a penalty," said council President Det Ansinn. "For a community like ours, the council didn't feel like (longboarding) was a good fit."

•California state law considers skateboarders the same as pedestrians, said Jim Beres, the civilian supervisor of the Laguna Beach, Calif., Police Department, where he said downhill recreational longboarding has spawned complaints. Skateboards as transportation there are common, he said.

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