Houston, TX Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP), the nonprofit the city contracted with under Ordinance No. 2016-65 and Ordinance No. 2022-716 to run these bayou-front parks, operates under Article XIII of Chapter 32. Section 32-301 defines Buffalo Bayou Park as the publicly dedicated tract between Memorial Drive and Glenwood Cemetery on the north, Sabine Street on the east, Allen Parkway on the south, and Shepherd Drive on the west, and subsection (f) states without qualification that skateboarding and scooters are prohibited in Buffalo Bayou Park with the exception of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skateboard Park and adjacent Skater's Alley.

Swimming is banned in the same subsection (g), showing the park's rules single out specific activities rather than imposing a blanket recreation ban. A few blocks east, § 32-302 covers Buffalo Bayou East Park, generally bounded by Clinton Drive, Lockwood Drive, Navigation Boulevard, and the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge; subsection (c) repeats the skateboard and scooter ban but phrases the exception more loosely, allowing the activity in designated areas that BBP marks rather than naming one fixed skate park. BBP holds delegated authority from the city's parks director to permit special uses, manage concessions, and set restricted-use areas under both sections, so the exact boundary of a designated area in the East Park can shift as BBP updates its maps, which the ordinance requires be kept available in the director's office and the mayor's office of special events.

Article XIII carries no penalty clause of its own, so a violation of either § 32-301(f) or § 32-302(c) falls back on the city's general Code penalty in § 1-6.