Beach access remains difficult for people with wheelchairs. Here are some resources to help

Seeing her 24-year-old son dip his feet in the ocean water at the beach fills Mayra Garcia with joy.

“There is so much sensory stimulation that happens with the sand, the waves and the water,” she said.

Her son, Jared Garcia Cortez, was born with Dandy-Walker Syndrome, a brain malformation that leads him to use a wheelchair and severely limits his vision and hearing. She lives in Long Beach and has taken her son to the beach dozens of times this year.

“More than 30, I think, and we continue going because of the sensory stimulation. Going to the beach and being near the ocean helps him a lot,” she said.

Three years ago, Long Beach installed mats at three beaches to help people who use wheelchairs and walkers enjoy city beaches. But there’s a problem.

“They don’t reach the ocean,” Garcia said, and that limits her son’s ability to fully use the public beach. She shared a photo that shows the mat stopping about 30 feet from the tide line.

The beach mat goes near the ocean — but not all the way.

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Courtesy Mayra Garcia

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LAist reached out to the city of Long Beach to see if it plans to lengthen the mats but has not received an answer.

Other people who are disabled, as well as organizations that advocate for their access to beaches, say public agencies have made strides in recent years, but full access to beaches remains out of reach for the estimated one in 25 Californians who use a wheelchair or walker.

Here’s what’s available and how to get it

In California, there is no one body overseeing all public beaches. City governments, county governments and state government are all in charge of different beaches. And that creates a hodgepodge of policies and access accommodations that is difficult to navigate.

“It would be cool if somebody put together a website that listed all the beaches that were the most accessible,” said Jesse Billauer.

Billauer knows Southern California beaches well. He grew up surfing up and down the coast until he broke his neck in a surfing accident in 1996.

An event for people with disabilities organized by Life Rolls On at La Jolla.

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Cliff Schumacher

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Courtesy Jesse Billauer

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“Now I continue to surf and travel and do competitions. I'm a four-time adaptive surfing world champion,” he said.

He creates his own access for others by laying down beach mats and using other technology for Life Rolls On, an organization that takes people with disabilities surfing, among other activities.

In the absence of a single website, LAist looked at different sites to see what information was available. Here’s what we found:

Statewide list

This California government website lists beaches statewide that provide specially adapted beach wheelchairs, with large wheels that make it easier to roll on sand.

The website includes a map with dozens of pinned locations that offer information about beach wheelchairs up and down the California coast.

The number of beach wheelchairs at different beaches in SoCal varies. For example, there are six at Dockweiler State Beach, one at Hermosa Beach and one or two at each of Santa Monica’s four beach sites.

The site also has information about the hours wheelchairs are available, the ID you need to bring and telephone numbers to call.

Santa Monica

This website lists the places north and south of the Santa Monica Pier that make beach wheelchairs available.

Huntington Beach

Years ago, Huntington Beach built a number of concrete paths from public walkways into the sand to improve beach access for people with disabilities. The paths are called Spencer Ramps.

This website shows the location of Spencer ramps at city of Huntington Beach beaches. The ramps don’t reach the edge of the ocean.

The city updated its list of wheelchair beach accommodations this past summer and includes a list of the parking lots that provide wheelchair access to the sand.

San Diego

This list gives information about which San Diego beaches provide beach access mats, as well as manual and power beach wheelchairs.

At Mission Beach in San Diego, the city provides technology made by Freedom Trax that allows a wheelchair to rest on top of, and be driven by, a track system that looks like those on military tanks.

Progress and a ways to go

Advocates for people with disabilities say agencies need to make it easier to access public beaches by creating more visible information about what’s available, making more beach wheelchairs available and improving access to the ocean water.

“Orange County beaches have made some strides in accessibility, but there is still work to do before they can be considered fully accessible for all people with disabilities,” as well as older adults and military veterans, said Brittany Zazueta by email.

She’s the executive director of the Dayle McIntosh Center, a disability access nonprofit. The organization, she said, was key in the creation of the Spencer Ramps in Huntington Beach.

People like Billauer and Garcia are often frustrated when access falls short and call on other advocates to reach out to public agencies to tell them they want better access because the rewards are worth it.

“Our hope is that this message serves as a call to action for communities to continue removing barriers and creating spaces where everyone can fully participate and enjoy,” Zazueta said.