Sheltered space for skateboarding opens on Vancouver’s Granville Island

A skateboarder rides the half-pipe at the annual All Aboard event o Granville Island.

As the days get shorter and the weather gets wetter, an annual installation offers Vancouver skateboarders somewhere sheltered and safe to ride—with organizers stressing the need for a permanent solution.

The All Aboard covered skatepark, complete with half-pipe, has returned to a Granville Island parkade, offering a dry and well-lit place for skateboarders to come together through the end of January.

Tal Fleerackers, one of the organizers, said the space offers an alternative to the outdoors and allows people to continue to ride despite outdoor conditions.

“We keep it open throughout some of Vancouver’s rainiest months. We have a big skateboarding community in Vancouver and Vancouver for a long time has been a hotspot for skateboarding yet, even now, we don’t have any covered, accessible, spaces to skate during the winter,” Fleecrackers told CTV News.

“We really only have outdoor skateparks. Unlike other sports that you can typically take indoors skateboarding remains a sport that people can’t really engage in during the winter when the rain sets in.”

With roughly 200 people signing up over the opening weekend, the turnout shows the interest that exists.

“That’s only a small fraction of the skateboarding community,” Fleecrackers said.

“It showcases how large the demand really is and demonstrates this gap that we feel should be covered.”

In 2022, the Vancouver Park Board adopted the “Skateboard Amenities Strategy,” meant to guide the city over the next 20 years.

An inventory of what’s available in the city found four skate parks and six additional “amenities” but noted nothing new had been built since 2011. Two places are described as “partially covered” but feedback received as part of the community engagement process indicated sheltered or indoor facilities were a “top priority.”

“A key element of achieving a robust skate amenity network will be finding ways to provide rain-sheltered spaces across the city that allow for year-round participation in the sport,” the 2022 report to the park board said.

“Developing a specific rain sheltered skate amenities study may be necessary to determine the best way to ensure skaters have a place to go when it rains.”