Reading, PA Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Section 576-1003(B) of the Reading Codified Ordinances makes it unlawful for any person to engage in roller-skating, skateboarding or to ride upon or propel any coaster or other toy vehicle on any street in the City, except when crossing the roadway, and on any sidewalk located in a business district. The subsection carves out one exception even within that ban: nothing stops a pedestrian from pulling a coaster or other toy vehicle, with or without a rider, along a sidewalk. The same section, in Subsection A, separately bars sledding on any sidewalk citywide, and on any roadway unless the street has been officially closed for sledding under Section 576-105 or Section 576-217, though a pedestrian may still pull a sled on a sidewalk.

Outside the street network, Reading's Park Code reinforces the restriction inside city parks: Section 396-305(A)(3) bars climbing, standing, roller-skating, roller-blading or skateboarding on monuments, sculptures, vases, planters, fountains, railings or fences, and Section 396-307 confines roller skates, roller blades and skateboards in parks to marked pathways, where they must yield to pedestrians. Because Section 576-1003(B)'s business-district sidewalk ban and street ban leave residential sidewalks and non-business-district areas unrestricted for skateboarding, the practical effect is that skateboarding is legal on most Reading sidewalks outside downtown and prohibited on the roadway itself and on downtown business-district sidewalks.