Chincoteague fears proposal to move beach would hurt tourism, economy

Wonder what it was like then?

A heck of a lot different than it is now, but also not all that different.

It's a world unto itself, and has its own lifestyle.

Not only is it UGLY, but dangerous to the natural inhabitants of the park! What kind of nonsense allows this?

Having the federal government own it and being responsible for upkeep (or lack thereof)?

If the town owned the land, they would have an incentive to make it pretty for the tourists.

Coastal subsidence....the Eastern Shore is prone to this coastal phenomenon.

The Outer Banks of NC is under the federal gun as well....piping plovers, etc for permanent beach closure.

The feds are out of control.......

While Germany has many faults, they are the best I have seen at keeping their forest free of debris and dead wood. They all look like parks. I will bet they hardly ever have a run a way wild fire. At least they kept them that way back in the day(1960).

I know the parking and shuttle buses to Pony Penning cost the tourists nothing, but someone is paying someone for the buses, fuel, maintenance, etc. The Chinc. taxpayers? Also, there is a big difference between a one day a year event, and running shuttle buses between the beach and a distant parking area for most of the year. Even when it is too cold to swim, people like to walk along the beach or go fishing. Are they going to run the buses one a regular basis for those people. Already, many of the people who do that are elderly or retired. This will be one more difficulty.

Why did they just finish paying $millions to route the road to the beach away from the center of town and directly to the beach road, Maddox Blvd. if they were going to make it hard to go to the beach. Someone must have a plan to make a killing with getting beach visitors from parking to the beach. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise. Failure of the beach as a draw will kill the town, the tax base for both the town and Accomack Co. and for the matter won’t help the state of Virginia either. WTF??

Chincoteague carries most of Accomack County as far as taxes go.

The state put the new bridges in - the old ones had to be replaced due to being well past their lifespan and were unsafe. It does make more sense where the new one is provided the beach stays open. It took several years to build that new one (they couldn't work during certain birding times of the year) and they had to keep access open during construction.

I'm not sure if anyone has a big financial interest in closing the beach - I know what the chatter is about where to put the parking lot and how much would be paid for it, but it doesn't seem too inflated from present value. Hadn't thought about bus profits.

But, if they close the beach people will stop going. Even though it's a quaint little island, without the beach it's nothing. Good questions you posed here.