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Beaches are a unique type of recreation setting offering significant physiological, psychological, and social benefits to people with disabilities. Providing and improving adequate access to recreation amenities such as beaches for people with disabilities have been recognized as essential responsibilities of public leisure agencies in their response to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. However, not all people with disabilities have adequate access to beaches. Concern continues that those with disabilities tend to be disproportionately denied the multiple benefits of access to beaches. Disparities in levels of access to beaches for people with disabilities represent an example of environmental injustice. Assessing the degree of environmental justice inherent in the distribution of access to beaches for people with ambulatory difficulty is, thus, an essential prerequisite to effective community recreation planning and management in the creation of active, health and sustainable communities. Despite the importance of equitable beach access for people with disabilities, and though some studies have focused on legal issues in the context of the public trust doctrine or ADA, no known empirical study has evaluated whether the level of beach access for people with disabilities is indeed equitable. So, the purpose of this study is to measure the degree of equity inherent in the distribution of beach access for people with disabilities in the Jacksonville Metropolitan Area. Geographic Information System in combination with spatial statistical techniques such as geographically weighted regression will be employed to account for spatial effects, phenomena rarely considered in prior equity analyses in the parks and recreation literature. The findings of this study can help parks and recreation agencies better understand local patterns of equity with regard to beach access for people with ambulatory difficulty, an important first step in facilitating the formulation of more effective water-based community recreation planning and management. |
