Montréal & Toronto Skate Spots: A Short Season
City Guides ·
Montréal and Toronto have five times the skatepark ratio of San Francisco. Here is what that says about skating two cities that lose months to winter.
Montréal has 139 spots on the map and 22 of them are skateparks. Toronto has 115 and 21 are parks. San Francisco, with 227 spots, has six. Atlanta has one, out of 83. That is not a rounding difference. It is roughly one park in six here against one in forty there, and it is the clearest thing in the data about what winter does to a skate scene.
Cold cities build parks
Warm cities do not need to build anything. If the ground is dry in February, the marble ledge outside an office tower is a skatepark, and the city's job is mostly to leave it alone. That is why San Francisco's map is 212 street spots and six parks, and why Atlanta's is 82 and one.
Montréal and Toronto do not get that. So the parks got built, and the map shows where: not downtown. Only three of Montréal's 22 parks sit within 3km of the core, and the median park is 8.6km out. Toronto is starker — one park inside 3km, median 8.5km, with entries as far as a skatepark on Lawrence Avenue East at 24km. Both cities put concrete in the boroughs, where the kids are and the land is cheap.
The street spots went the other way. In Montréal, 100 of 115 street entries fall inside that same 3km downtown circle. Toronto's are looser — 51 of 92 — but the pattern holds. So the practical read is simple: the parks are a car or a long transit ride, and the street is a walk.
One caveat before the cities. Sixteen of Montréal's 22 parks and 13 of Toronto's 21 are named just "Skatepark", so the park side of this map was filled in fast. Some are near-certain duplicates: Parc Raymond Préfontaine and a Skatepark share a Rue Hochelaga address, 38m apart.
Montréal: everything inside a twenty-minute walk
Montréal's downtown is absurdly concentrated. Three clusters carry most of it, all doable in a day without transit.
Start on Avenue McGill College. Four spots sit inside a 132m circle: Stairs and slappies at 1992-1998, a LowToHigh 59m away at 1981, Curbs at 2001 another 41m on, and a Wallride around the corner on Rue Mansfield.
Walk northeast into the Quartier des spectacles; the density gets sillier. Manual pads and a Wheelie spot on Rue Jeanne-Mance are 37m apart. A Curb and Benches at 1495-1555 are 29m apart. Place des Arts is 130m from the manual pads, more Benches sit on Rue Saint-Urbain, and Peace Park is about 350m east. Seven entries, none more than a five-minute push from the next.
Drop south into Vieux-Montréal for the older stone. Stairs and curbs at 140 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Stairs and wheelie spot at 116, and Rail and curbs on Rue Saint-Jacques form a 90m triangle. Wet manual pad on Rue Saint-Antoine Ouest is 134m from the rail, and the name is a warning: this quarter drains badly. Place Royale Montréal and a Curb on Place d'Youville are 115m apart further south, and Stairs and rails sit on the Promenade du Vieux-Port.
Outside downtown, the Olympic site is the one trip worth making. Big O on Rue Viau is the anchor. Olympic Stadium is 631m south, a Skatepark on Avenue Pierre-De Coubertin is 90m from that, and Dime Glory Challenge 2022 — private, so treat it as a record, not an invitation — is 129m further. Four entries inside 830m on one plaza.
For parks, Tazpark on Avenue Papineau leads the map with 34 photos. Cégep du Vieux Montréal leads the street spots with 14. In Saint-Henri, LowToHigh and small blocks and Benches sit 37m apart on Rue Saint-Ferdinand.
Toronto: a spine instead of a core
Toronto's street map stretches along Yonge Street, repeating the same shape at four latitudes.
The tightest downtown cluster is Fort York and Bathurst: six spots inside 255m. Manny pad on Fort York Boulevard, Concor 54m away, Onni Group at 60m, Bathurst up ledge at 125m, then a Curb and a Round curb 39m apart on Bathurst itself.
The Rogers Centre block is the photogenic one. Skydome has 10 photos, Parc Roundhouse is 141m away with seven, Rod Robbie Bridge another 249m, and Simcoe Park closes the loop 182m on, with nine.
University Avenue is a different shape: eight entries over 1.6km rather than bunched. Going north from a rail at 1-29: Curbs at 147, Stairs and curb at 200, the Fountain 139m on at 320-330, Stairs at 380, and University Avenue itself at 700. A straight line, so it skates as one session.
Christie Pits is the best single-block argument for Toronto. Christie Pits Park and the Christie Pits skatepark are 76m apart, St Raymond banks is 66m from the park, another Skatepark on Bloor Street West is 167m off, and The Bickford Centre is 382m south with 19 photos, more than any other spot in the city. Park and street in one walk — the whole trick in a short season.
Head up Yonge and the pattern recurs. 4 flat 3 and Set of 8 sit 54m apart at 3000 Yonge. Up in North York, Benches and wallie and Stairs are 48m apart, with a Wallride at 4827 and Set of 5 and rail on Upper Madison closing a 312m box. Two subway stops further, three more entries cluster inside 172m at 5740-5800 Yonge.
For parks, under pass skate park on Eastern Avenue is the only one within 3km of downtown.
What is open in January
Seven spots across the two cities carry an indoor flag. Two of Toronto's are skate shops, and a shop being indoors tells you nothing about where to skate. Strip those and you get five covered spots for two cities that lose four months a year.
Montréal's two are both real: TRH Bar on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, and Cité 2000 on Rue Notre-Dame Est, logged private, so a record rather than an open door. Rarer than it sounds: 65 of the 110 indoor records on our whole map are shops, and Montréal is one of four cities where none are.
Toronto's three are all a trek: Evolve on Saint Clair Avenue West at 5km out, Skate Loft on Warden Avenue at 11km, and Woodbine Mall on Rexdale Boulevard at 19km. The shops are Adrift Skateshop on Spadina and hammer skate shop on Queen Street East.
Two caveats. Six more Toronto entries carry no flag either way — five unnamed parks and one curb — so the count may be higher. And a second Skate Loft, on Curity Avenue, is flagged outdoor, most likely one operation logged twice.
Five covered spots, none of the Toronto ones near downtown. Call ahead.
Where the map is thin
Five Montréal spots and six Toronto spots have no photos, most of them parks.
Full lists are on the Montréal city page and the Toronto city page. If you skate one of the unnamed parks, the map gets better when you say what is in it.