ecoRI News — Climate Change, Private Interests Erode Public Access to Shore

Anyone who gets too close to this fence on a steep incline along the Cliff Walk in Newport, R.I., is apparently a bad boy. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News)

May 24, 2021
By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

The seed that became a nonprofit ocean advocacy group was planted on a cold January day in 2006, when Dave McLaughlin was told he couldn’t park on a particular road near Salve Regina University and the Cliff Walk.

He and a friend had been surfing at a popular Newport, R.I., spot at the end of Ruggles Avenue. It was a busy day in that section of the city, famous for The Breakers and other Gilded Age monuments, as three events were taking place, including one at Salve Regina University, so the surfers had to park two blocks away on Shepard Avenue.

When they returned to their cars, the surfers were told by university security officers that they weren’t allowed to park on this private way.

McLaughlin said it wasn’t clear then if Shepard Avenue was a public or private street and if, in fact, surfers, Cliff Walk visitors and others couldn’t park there, so the then-35-year-old and his surfing buddy, Frank Hanson, brought the issue of shoreline access to the attention of Newport Police and the City Council.

Clean Ocean Access has 31 shoreline access rights of way on Aquidneck Island, including this one in Portsmouth, that it maintains. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News)

Fifteen years later, it’s still not clear if Shepard Avenue, while now available for anyone to use without a lecture about parking, is a public or private road. In that time, however, Clean Ocean Access has adopted 31 shoreline access rights of way on Aquidneck Island that it maintains and monitors.

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