Santa Fe, NM Public Conduct: Skateboarding Rules (2026)

Section 12-3-6, titled 'Use of Coaster Wagons, Roller Skates, Skateboards, and Similar Devices Restricted,' sits in Article III of Santa Fe's traffic ordinance, the article that applies the traffic code's general rules to particular categories of street users. The section states flatly that no person 'upon roller skates, or riding in or by means of any coaster wagon, skateboard, toy vehicle, or similar device, shall go upon any street,' with a single carve-out: crossing a street on a crosswalk. While making that crossing, the section grants the rider the same rights, and holds them to the same duties, as a pedestrian under the traffic code, meaning a skateboarder in a crosswalk must yield and cross the way a walker would, not the way a vehicle would.

4(A)(1) independently makes it unlawful to 'propel or operate a skateboard on the Plaza' at any time, enforced with an escalating police-issued fine schedule of a warning for a first offense, $50 for a second, and $100 for a third. 1, up to a $500 fine or 90 days in the county jail, or both. The section's citation marker '(*)' in the code indicates it was adopted under the city's own police power rather than as a direct restatement of a numbered NMSA provision, and it sits among other Article III sections applying traffic duties to non-standard street users, including push carts and animal-drawn vehicles under Section 12-3-5.