A Message to My Mayor

Dear Mayor Garcia and Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal,

Not long ago I emailed the Mayor’s office, and posted on social media, another ADA concern: Beach accessibility. No, you can’t make a concrete beach

but, I suggested working with the businesses down on the beach and at shoreline who rent bikes to also rent out beach wheelchairs. The prices for purchase range from $400 to a couple of thousand. I never heard back regarding my email, but I was contacted by a couple of people in your office via Facebook after I publicized this concern that some were available in Belmont Shore. My follow-up was that it was unreasonable to have your disabled residents travel all the way to Belmont Shore just to rent a beach wheelchair when none of your able-bodied residents need to go so far to rent bikes and

umbrellas and there are rental shops closer (or can be placed closer) to Shoreline.

The photo in this message is yet another solution. The city just re-did the bike and pedestrian paths but failed, to my knowledge, to even consider a wheelchair path that would run from various points of the ped/bike path to the water (or close to it). These wheelchair accessible paths would not dot the beach and therefore “lower” the beauty or usability of the sand. I would suggest placing one near the first bike rental shop on the beach near the volleyball courts (but not next to the courts), another would be further down and another even further. I suggest placing at least 4 of these type paths between the downtown area of the beach and belmont shore and maybe 2-4 more between there and the next major area.

Please consider this and other ways to make Long Beach more accessible to residents and visitors. Shopping is great, but enjoying the city to it’s fullest is greater.