After two years of surveys, data-gathering and collaboration, a coalition on Martha's Vineyard has put together a guide aimed at helping people figure out which island beaches are most accessible for people with disabilities.
Healthy Aging Martha’s Vineyard was one of the groups that worked on this guide. The group’s executive director, Cindy Trish, noticed a need for one centralized location where people can find information about the accessibility of public beaches.
“I probably get a call a day or a couple of calls a week at our agency during the summer: ‘My mom's here. Where can I take her? She's in a wheelchair,’” Trish said. “So, a couple of years ago, we put our heads together and said, ‘Well, let's start collecting some information and using that as a starting point.’”
Trish and her colleagues worked to define accessibility by a list of factors.
“Being able to get to the beach—whether that be with handicap parking, whether that be with a wheelchair accessible bus that will stop at that parking—whatever that looks like,” Trish said. “Then getting on the beach, and then being able to get into the water.”
Whether beaches have wheelchair-accessible mats, easy access to floating wheelchairs, grading that allows for safe wheelchair descent—this is just some of the information the beach guide provides, organizing beaches by town.
The guide also lists the top five most accessible beaches on the island, which include Inkwell/Pay Beach, Marinelli Beach, North Bluffs Beach, Owen Park Way Beach and the Camp Jabberwocky section of Sylvia State Beach.
Dukes County Associate Commissioner for Disabilities Dick Cohen was also part of the coalition working on this project. He said the group distributed self-surveys to the managers of all the island's more than 30 public beaches.
“We did not find, initially, any beach that was fully accessible,” Cohen said. “Some of the 30 were closed, so there was a lot of work to be done.”
In February and March of 2024, the group released reports making recommendations for how to make the beaches more accessible.
“Almost everything we've recommended is required by law and has been required for 30—and in some cases 50—years,” Cohen said. “We laid out what the standards were and the requirements were and measured the beaches in each element of accessibility against those standards and let them know where those gaps were.”
Then, Cohen and his group worked with towns and nonprofits to improve accessibility at the beaches.
“We actually gave them a list of grants that they could apply for,” he said. “In many instances, they use town funds or their own nonprofit funds.”
Trish noted that while the guide is designed to help people with disabilities navigate the island’s many beaches, it can benefit the whole community. For example, mobility mats that allow people in wheelchairs to get onto the beach can be useful for people of all different abilities, Trish said.
“Accessibility is a plus for everyone, whether you're in a wheelchair, whether you're on a rollator or using a cane, or if you're pushing two kids in a stroller or pulling a wagon full of beach goodies,” she said. “It's so universal in terms of it being helpful.”
