He flips his skateboard onto a metal rail, slides smoothly along and lands back on the ground.

"It's a good place," the baby-faced 15-year-old says of the $500,000 park that opened last year. "I never get in trouble here."

City officials across the Valley must agree.

Since 1999 *, five taxpayer-funded skate parks have been built in the Valley alongside more traditional basketball courts and softball fields in city parks. That's up from just one less than three years ago. At least five more parks are in the works in Glendale, Peoria, Tempe, Ahwatukee and Apache Junction. Several other cities have them in their long-term plans.

More than $2 million has been spent so far to build the parks, money that cities have decided is a good investment to keep skaters off streets and storefronts. The parks also give skaters a place to socialize that's equipped with features that are often better than the sidewalks and stairways they're used to.

"You're just recognizing a new up-and-coming sport in the nation and providing facilities for it," said Roger Boyer, parks project coordinator for Glendale, which opens a $375,000, 30,000-square-foot skate park this spring. "These kids truly need a place to go. The community wins by having a place they know they'll find skateboarders."

"Up and coming" is putting it mildly. Skateboarding attracted 11.6 million people last year, up 50 percent from 1999, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

A mostly male audience of teens and 20-somethings has latched onto skating as the X Games, an extreme sports competition, and the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater * video games have become more popular, experts say. Indeed, when Hawk, the Michael Jordan of skating, and other pro skaters toured a private skate park in Tempe last spring, 700 people showed up.

Hundreds of skate parks have been built nationwide over the past couple of years. And Arizona *, with its good weather and proximity to California *, has earned a national reputation on skateboarding Web sites for an expanding network of well-designed parks.

More positives

Not to say that getting a city to build a skate park is easy. In most cases, the parks got off the ground only after skaters raised money and lobbied politicians and community leaders.

Mike Pringle, 21, was part of a group of skaters who helped get the Desert West park in west Phoenix built in 1997 *. For two years, he sold hot dogs and hamburgers and held skate contests to raise about $30,000 for what became the first public skate park in the Valley. The city pitched in $140,000.

"That's what it took," Pringle said. "Now they know people will skate them if they build them."

Cities had worried that skate parks would be more dangerous and raise more liability issues than other sports facilities. But research from groups including the National Safety Council convinced officials that the parks would create more positives than problems.

"We think of it as a high-risk sport, but it really isn't," Boyer said. "The injuries are really minimal and not serious."

Cities limit liability by posting signs but not supervising the parks or enforcing rules on safety equipment. It puts the parks in about the same legal category as other sports facilities, city officials said.

"If they're designed by competent professionals, with an eye to safety and feasibility, you get a quality product you can stand behind," said Mark Richwine, parks and recreation director for Tempe.

Officials say the skaters police themselves pretty well, although only a handful actually wears helmets or pads at any given park.

Parents, many of whom drive their kids to the parks, seem to be generally supportive.

"Boys have a lot of energy to burn, and this gives them an opportunity to do that," Sherri O'Neill said as she watched her 8-year-old son, Dennis, skate at the Chandler park. "This is one thing they have in common, regardless of color or how they dress or who they hang out with."

Downsides appear to be minor.

Gilbert's park has been vandalized, and the new park in northeast Phoenix is filled with trash every day, officials said.

Few studies have been done on crime near the parks, but the Phoenix Police Department said crime went down around the Desert West park after it opened.

Complaints from neighbors are rare, probably because the parks often sit in larger parks that serve as a buffer zone between homes.

Skaters' only complaint seems to be that there aren't enough parks to go around.

"You're limited with where you can go, so you have to drive 15 minutes any direction to get to a park," said Nik Charette, 19, who lives in east Phoenix. "There should be at least one skate park in every city. One in every major neighborhood would probably be ideal."

Place to go

On a typical Friday night at the Chandler park, about 50 people are rolling in all directions around the concrete bowls and metal rails. The park has been full since 4 p.m., soon after school got out, and will stay packed until the gates close at 10:30.

Near the entrance, two boys compete in a game of "skate," each completing moves and then challenging the other to match. Younger kids stop to watch as older, more experienced skaters flip their boards high in the air, land upright and keep rolling.

Backpacks line the fence, and the water fountain stays occupied, despite the cool night air.

A few hundred feet away, teams of grade-school girls play soccer on two fields. A playground next door is empty.

Petit says he used to play soccer and doesn't frown on the more traditional sports. But on this night, he's glad he has a park to skate as he pleases.

"You don't have to go anywhere," he says with a smile. "Everything's here."

This article was originally titled "Skate parks growing in popularity" and is by Ashley Bach of The Arizona Republic and was originally found at http://www.azcentral.com/rep/style/ articles/1220skatepark20.html

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