Seaside Slalom : Congestion: Problems are many, solutions are few as pedestrians mix it up with wheeled forces on Ocean Front Walk.

Mention the boardwalk in Mission Beach, and people start talking about war.

“They have these missiles that aren’t connected,” said a tanned, middle-aged woman with a pleasant expression belying the grating in her voice.

They are teen-agers, and their arsenal is made up of skateboards. Their tail-jamming, wheel-rapping “Ollie” jumps pose imminent danger to the lives and limbs of anyone within the fall-off zone, the woman said in mild desperation while maintaining her earnest face.

She spoke at a public hearing this week on what to do about congestion on venerable Ocean Front Walk in the San Diego beach community. Surrounding her were the very skateboard-wielding youths of whom she spoke.

On any sunny weekend, Ocean Front Walk--shops lining one side, the beach the other--becomes something of a human slalom course. Foot-traffic flow is worse than rush hour on Interstate 8.

Retirees mingle intimately with tourists who yield space on the 12-foot-wide cement walkway to the skateboarders. Add the swooping, skidding, sliding action of teens on wheels, says Mission Beach Town Council member Bob Moore, “and, you bet it’s dangerous.”

Nerve-racking board-grinds against the cement planter in front of Hamel’s skate rental shop have startled many a beach stroller, although most concede that the bulk of bodily injury generally befalls the skateboarders and skaters who perform feats of skill and annoyance amid the crush of beach-goers at Mission. Periodically there are passerby casualties, but most escape with little more than shot nerves.

Skateboarders are not the sole boardwalk hazard, say critics of Mike McInerney’s bread and butter--the pedal carriage.

McInerney’s business, Mike’s Bikes, rents eight “quadracycles” which, he says, are a kick to ride and are instruments of socialization--tools to bring people closer together. (The surrey-like cycle accommodates two adults and three children comfortably, McInerney says.) At the public hearing, McInerney gave a plug for family outings that would make Dan Quayle proud.

Family unity notwithstanding, it seems city officials have decided Mike’s big bikes have got to go.

An ordinance that would ban “unconventional bicycles” from the boardwalk was issued by a City Council subcommittee. When McInerney heard about the ordinance proposal, he offered to remove the bikes from the boardwalk if allowed to operate through the fall so he can recover some of his investment. The city accepted a verbal agreement, and checked off one, probably the least, of the boardwalk’s problems.

For years, Mission Beach residents have differed on how to restore pedestrian safety. The situation worsened until 1989, when a 69-year-old man brushed against a cyclist and fell. The man struck his head against the seawall and eventually died of his injuries.

In 1990, the City Council passed an ordinance to ban alcohol from the boardwalk, reasoning that an alcohol-free boardwalk would be a safer one, said Terry Williams, deputy park and recreation director for the city’s coastal division. The city also ordered painted reminders on the sidewalk warning all of the 5 m.p.h. speed limit.

The two remedies were chosen from a formal list of 13 proposals that were researched by the city Park and Recreation Department.

Conditions improved, Williams said, but problems persist. Retail shops and restaurants pack themselves tighter and tighter into the 13-block business zone. Belmont Park and the adjacent Red Onion nightclub provide peripheral revelry. Each summer, the numbers grow.

As Mission Beach began to grapple again with boardwalk safety issues, the list of 13 solutions was dusted off and brought up by Williams at the hearing Wednesday night.

Some of the suggestions include creating traffic lanes, speed bumps, a skateboard park away from the beach; widening the existing boardwalk; banning all wheels--skateboards, roller skates, bicycles. The ban proposal was roundly booed at the hearing, the loudest response coming from the two dozen or so who showed up wearing skates or bearing boards.

The mention of a separate skate park elicited a skeptic’s smirk from Jonathan Magnus, a cashier at the Arby’s fast food restaurant facing the parking lot at Mission Beach.

“Prohibit skateboards and build a skate park,” Magnus repeated. “Yeah, in Jamul. And the city should also build a walking park. And a bicycle park. And . . .”

Williams cut in quickly: “These ideas were brought up two years ago, and may be just as laughable now.”

B. Christmas Brewster, the chief of the city’s lifeguards, said the city has looked north for solutions. Boardwalk traffic lights have been successful at Hermosa Beach and Huntington Beach.