What follows is one of the many articles in the Mercury‘s 2026 Transportation issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.
It is the crown jewel of Portland DIY tales. In 1990, a group of skateboarders living in Portland were looking for a skatepark to call their own. Seeking shelter from the violent rains of the city, they settled on the undercarriage of the east side of the Burnside Bridge and, lacking permits, capital, or anything except collective will and a vision of glorious skateboarding fun, set to cleaning up the various needles and piles of garbage that had collected there, acquired unused concrete from workers building the I-84 onramp under construction nearby, and built the core features of what’s now known as the Burnside Skatepark.
The city of Portland would’ve been well within their rights if they wanted to send in backhoes and toss the new skatepark into a series of dumpsters. But the city government took a different tactic and signed over the space to the DIYers, who formed a nonprofit to operate and continually improve the park for the benefit of the local skateboarding community.
Burnside became a sensation not only with local skaters, but among an emerging group of skateboarders, video producers, and skating equipment entrepreneurs who were coalescing into what we now recognize as the global skateboarding industry. In 1998, the park appeared in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, a blockbuster video game that marked the emergence of skateboarding into the broader consciousness. DIY skatepark projects all over the world have taken inspiration from the Burnside story.
Burnside, and the city’s relative acceptance of skateboarding and skateboarders (not everywhere was so generous), helped to make Portland one of the world’s premier skateboarding cities. The sport, riding the internet and the wave of construction that followed in the decades following Burnside’s emergence on the scene, is bigger than ever. A trip to your local skatepark on a nice day will expose you to skaters of all ages and inclinations: kids in helmets taking instruction from their parents, 30-somethings getting in a workout, real old heads practicing the intricacies of kickflips, and social media types hunting for juicy content, among others.
In the last few years, the people of Portland, be they city government types, DIYers operating from the ask-for-forgiveness-not-permission spirit of Burnside, non-profit activists, or others, have sought to make the city into a veritable buffet of skatepark options. The platonic ideal of a park has shifted a little, away from the concrete vision of Burnside and towards a more transportable, less-permanent infrastructure of smaller, gentler ramps, made from laminated wood located in different outposts around the city.
“We use a mix of plywood, steel, and 2x4s. It’s built to be durable, adaptable, and able to evolve with the community over time,” said Alex Murrell, the executive director at Dream Big City, a nonprofit that currently maintains a large skate plaza at SE 9th and Taylor. “What used to feel overlooked now feels active and shared.”
The goal of Dream Big City is to create inclusive environments “where people can show up, connect, and be part of something without pressure.”
“Growing up, we didn’t have a safe place to go,” Murrell remembered. “Many people still don’t have a place that feels like it’s for them. This is about creating places people actually want to be—safe, alcohol- and drug-free environments.”
These less-than-permanent parks have appeared all around the city, from the south side of Laurelhurst Park, to the Dream Plaza in Southeast Portland, to a DIY installation at SE 7th and Sandy, located in a pop-up plaza in the middle of a historically sketchy intersection.
Katherine Rose, a longtime DIY skatepark advocate, formerly worked with the organization Depave to develop the pop-up installation at the 7th and Sandy intersection as part of a larger project in the area.
“It felt very organic and natural to me to infuse skating into the way I was activating the space. We got tons of positive feedback—not just from skateboarders, but from people on bikes and scooters, and pretty diverse groups of people would be there,” Rose said. “Even non-skaters would sit and watch people use the space.”
Rose said she sees the act of skating as a “vulnerable and playful act of resistance in urban landscapes.”
“Even if there isn’t a DIY space, people skating in the street are carving through a landscape that’s not built for them,” Rose said. “By creating skateable spaces, we’re pushing up against the built landscape to find ways to rethink space, and remind people that play and non-utilitarian use [of space] are also valid and important ways to exist. Skaters have the ability to see a landscape and [imagine] something different for it. I think that act is hopeful and creative.”
Murrell also emphasized how the pop-up skate areas can transform parts of the city.
“It’s DIY, creative, and community-driven. People build their own spots, mix in art and music, and make something out of what’s already there,” he said. “They skate it, make it their own, and it becomes a meeting spot. That kind of presence can shift how a place feels.”