Beachfront Wheelchair Ramp a Hit

About 30 handicapped students who tried out a new wheelchair ramp at Ventura’s Harbor Cove Beach on Wednesday found the 200-foot trek from the parking lot to the water’s edge is now a breeze.

Students from the Douglas Penfield School and De Anza Middle School, both in Ventura, were on hand for the official opening of the polyethylene plastic ramp, the first of its kind in Ventura County and among only a few in the state.

After Ventura Mayor Greg Carson led the dedication ceremony, the students dangled their feet in the water, listened to the waves and picnicked on the sand at the end of the ramp.

“Without the ramp, we had to carry the wheelchairs to the water’s edge,” said Fran Patterson, a teacher at Penfield School, which draws handicapped students from several cities in the county.

Patterson quoted one parent as saying: “You don’t know how great it’s going to be to go to the beach as a family now.”

The $20,000 project was funded with $10,000 from the California Coastal Conservancy, $5,000 from the city of Ventura, $2,500 from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Maxine Crossley Fund and $2,500 from the Amgen Foundation.

The portable ramp is located at Harbor Cove Beach, off Spinnaker Drive near the Channel Islands National Park Headquarters.

Similar ground-level ramps are in use in Santa Cruz and Malibu.

Don Marquardt, Ventura’s landscape architect, said the county is home to about 15,000 handicapped people who previously have found a trip to the beach nearly impossible.

But the ramp is the third effort in a year to improve beach access, he said. The first was a specially designed “surf” wheelchair that moves in the sand. Purchased by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the vehicle was used by children Wednesday at the ramp dedication.

The other project was Rehab Point, a privately built concrete path and pad near Oxnard State Beach that enables wheelchair users to get within 100 feet of the water.