Bellevue, NE Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Bellevue Code of Ordinances § 18-11 covers roller skates, coasters, toy vehicles and similar devices under the city's motor vehicle and traffic chapter, Chapter 18. The rule treats a skateboard, coaster wagon or set of roller skates the same way it treats other wheeled devices not attached to a licensed vehicle: the roadway itself, meaning the paved portion of a street used for vehicle travel, is off limits to a rider on wheels. The only carve-out is a marked crosswalk, and only while actually crossing; once across, the rider must return to the sidewalk or shoulder.

While crossing, Bellevue treats the rider as a pedestrian, so the rider gains a pedestrian's right-of-way at the crosswalk but also takes on a pedestrian's duty to yield outside a signal-controlled crossing. Section 18-11 also carries a narrow exception for a street the city council has designated a play street by ordinance; on that street, coasting and skating in the roadway itself is lawful because the designation closes the street to normal vehicle traffic. Bellevue Police Department officers, who enforce Chapter 18 alongside code enforcement inspectors under § 18-65, can stop and cite a rider found skating or coasting in the travel lane of an ordinary street.

The rule traces to 1964 Code § 14-40 and has carried forward unamended into the current chapter, so the prohibition is not new; it predates the modern skateboard, but the current text has never been narrowed to exclude one.