Author’s Note: Happy Memorial Day weekend! I hope you are able to gather safely with family and friends to celebrate and commemorate. In the spirit of this weekend kicking off the unofficial start of summer, below is an essay (long shot idea) asking local leaders to consider participating in a multi-town — better yet Cape-wide — beach parking pass.
The concept is rooted in the mountains (ski areas), but could create new experiences and better understanding of Cape Cod’s natural resources for locals and visitors alike. I’d love to hear your reaction to the idea, so unleash the comments!
All-Access/Multi-Town Cape Cod Beach Parking Pass
Whether bayside or oceanside, salt or fresh water, private or public, beaches make Cape Cod a special place. The same is true for the communities around them.
Yet parking at area beaches during the summer season can be daunting, to say the least. Could a multi-town, even Cape-wide, beach parking pass better promote these natural resources?
Beach access has been on my mind. Recent articles on the “dust-up in Dennis,” where seasonal residents are not eligible for the $50 full-time resident beach sticker and instead must buy an $180 seasonal resident beach sticker. Similarly, Chatham and Orleans continue the longstanding debate of the proper distribution of revenue from oversand vehicle stickers.
Being Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of the summer, most Cape Cod towns updated their beach information and fees for the upcoming summer season. Easier said than understood.
All 15 Cape Cod towns have different prices, options, enforcement dates, enforcement times, and processes for purchasing a beach parking sticker/pass. (I actually compiled a spreadsheet listing all this information and my head hurt about thirty minutes into a 2-hour project.)
Overloaded with 15 different beach sticker programs, I am convinced a multi-town beach sticker season pass is a worthy pursuit. Feel free to ready the rotten tomatoes.
Admitedly, it is easy enough to work-around parking at town beaches without the required parking sticker. You can visit before 9:00 am, or after 4:30 pm in most cases. You can drop off your party and park elsewhere if you don’t mind walking back. Ridesharing eliminates parking problems completely.
The idea of a multi-town or Cape-wide pass is rooted above sea level. A recent trend in the ski industry is the evolution of a multi-resort, “all-access” season or frequency pass. If you are a skier or rider, think Epic/Ikon (season pass) or Indy/Mountain Collective (frequency pass).
A season pass could offer unlimited or limited access to beaches in participating Cape Cod towns. Just look at The Cape Cod National Seashore annual pass as an example. For $60, you have unlimited access to six beaches in four Cape Cod towns. For Cape Cod standards, what a deal!
A frequency pass offers a set amount of days (say, two or three days) to visit beaches in participating towns, with or without restrictions. Just like holiday “black out” dates in December and February at ski areas, the Fourth of July or Labor Day weekends could have restricted access.
Such programs give passholders more options/incentives to visit different places and have new experiences while host communities reap the benefit of increased exposure and related economic activity and hopefully, return shoppers (beachgoers).
Town parking policies would not have to change. A multi-town season or frequency parking pass would still not guarantee a parking space. Parking lot access would still be first-come, first serve. Towns can also dictate which beach(es) participate, so locals only beaches can be preserved. No refunds can still be the policy.
The concept is based on increased value (slight discount, enhanced access, etc.) in exchange for upfront commitment by customers (resident or tourist passholders). Payouts could be distributed equally among participating towns based on passes sold, or by redemptions, meaning each town gets paid when a passholder visits one of their beaches. Technology makes tracking usage seamless.
Snacks bars, food or ice cream trucks, equipment rental shops, and area businesses would gain exposure to new visitors (again, resident or tourist passholders) who would otherwise not have a reason to visit the area. A multi-town beach pass could also make a great gift, especially for those looking to give the gift of experiences rather than stuff.
Finally, Cape Cod has a history of collaboration. From regionalization of schools to recreation trails to wild life management – even beaches. That’s right, precedent for a multi-town beach pass exists in the Upper Cape. Bourne and Sandwich have a reciprocal agreement that grants season passholders access to certain beaches in each town, though there are caps and restrictions.
Summer on Cape Cod can be magical. The parades, baseball games, band concerts, clambakes, are just a few cherished summer traditions that define summer on Cape Cod. The beaches also tend to be part of that story, many of which are consistently ranked in “Top 10” lists nationally.
Let’s make visiting them possible and affordable.