Though it is taking longer than enthusiasts expected, skateboarders in Bangor soon could have a skatepark to call their own, a tribute to their persistence and to the city’s sincerity in finding a safe place to skate.

Bangor is like a lot of places that have plenty of good kids who like the healthy challenge of flips, leaps, shoves, jumps and grinds of skateboarding, but haven’t a good place to do them. That means using the next best place – often parking lots, where traffic is a problem and pedestrians fear for their ankles when skateboards shoot out from under their owners. The lack of a park forces storeowners to play the heavy by asking teens to move along and police to confiscate boards when they don’t. No one’s happy.

A skatepark is the obvious answer but not so obvious is its location. Because of the noise and lights, few people would welcome them near their homes. And downtown did not present any likely possibilities. Bass Park, a bit out of the way but not so far to be a burden for those teens who still get around without automobiles, provides an answer. City planners think they have found a site there that would give skateboarders plenty of space and would be visible from the main parking area.

The site currently is used for 10 days each summer for the circus tent at the Bangor State Fair. That means the skatepark would have to be taken apart during fair days, which means the park would have to be made of wood, which in turn provides a great opportunity to let Wonder Wood show its stuff. Wonder Wood is the marvelous combination of waste wood, carbon and fiberglass that’s as strong as steel but lighter and more versatile. Produced by the Advanced Engineering Wood Composites Center at the University of Maine, Wonder Wood already is used for bridges and docks. There’s every reason to think that it would a superior, local material for use as a skatepark.

That would make the new park a double win for Bangor – an ideal place for skateboarders to enjoy themselves and a new use for a valuable product from the University of Maine.