WGBH — Barriers at the Beach: State law and town rules keep most of Mass. shoreline off-limits
A "no parking" sign guards the entrance to the town-owned Sunrise Beach in Marshfield, Mass. Chris Burrell / GBH News
May 23, 2022
By Chris Burrell — MASSACHUSETTS — It’s called the Bay State. It has roughly 1,400 miles of coastline and a world-famous tourist magnet called “the Cape and Islands.”
Massachusetts should be a beach lover’s paradise, but access to the state’s shores is deeply uneven. Entry to most beaches is dependent on personal wealth, your home zip code and a shrinking allotment of “visitor” parking spaces clustered far from the water and a system of parking restrictions aimed at out-of-towners.
Just 12% of the state’s beaches are open to all members of the public, according to a coastal land inventory done by the state more than 30 years ago — the last estimate the state ever attempted, when the state had about 1 million fewer residents. That small percentage of public beaches often draw crowds so big on sunny days that parking lots fill to capacity, turning away carloads of disappointed travelers and people trying to seek ocean relief from hot temperatures as climate change has steadily increased the number of summer days that reach high temperatures over 90 degrees.
Beach access is also — perhaps unsurprisingly — an issue of racial inequity. The state’s urban beaches are free and easily accessible, but some of the beaches located in more racially and ethnically diverse communities such as Boston, Lynn and Quincy are also more prone to bacterial contamination that poses a health risk, sometimes forcing beach closures.
Now, three decades after state leaders sounded an alarm about the lack of public access to Massachusetts’ beaches, two state lawmakers are renewing the push to demand a bigger public foothold.
Private ownership
Given the rising demands for beach access and dwindling supply as many Massachusetts beaches are simply getting smaller through erosion and sea level rise, state Rep. Dylan Fernandes and Sen. Julian Cyr from the Cape and Islands are reviving an old battle cry to dismantle the state law dating back to the Colonial era that allows private ownership of beachfront property all the way down to the low-tide line.
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