A Mobi-mat is shown in Seaside.

The city has installed 850 feet of blue Mobi-mats on the beach to make it easier to access.

Starting at the 12th Avenue access point, the mats provide a flat surface for wheels to roll on, which can help people with mobility aids like wheelchairs and walkers get to the beach.

“The feedback we’ve been getting from people who go out there who are specifically limited in their mobility on the beach, it’s just been so, so worth it,” Joshua Heineman, the city’s director of tourism marketing, said. “I mean, it really brings the beach into play for them.”

The mats join several other beach accessibility efforts in the past few years. The city added free beach wheelchairs, which need to be pushed, for reservation in 2018 and a David’s Chair, which is electrically powered and can be operated by a single user, in April.

The Promenade, established over 100 years ago, is an accessible way to see the ocean, but the new efforts provide access onto the sand and across the dunes.

The Seaside Visitors Bureau ordered about $35,000 worth of mats and equipment in July.

The purchase makes Seaside home to the longest accessible beach access of its kind on the Oregon Coast, the city said on Facebook.

“We ordered so much of them that actually they had to manufacture some for us, so we had to wait till Aug. 25 to get our full inventory and put them out,” Heineman said.

The mats have a five-year shelf life, but “the ocean environment is pretty serious,” Heineman said. They’ll be stored in the winter to guard against harsh weather.

The city chose the 12th Street entrance strategically. It’s not as heavily trafficked as entrances closer to the turnaround on Broadway Street, which can help with wear and tear on the mats. It also has restrooms with ramps and public parking spaces, making the entrance more accessible. That stretch of beach has lots of sand dunes, which makes the mats all the more impactful, Heineman said.

Heineman, who helped with the installation, said people started to use them right away.

“Every 100-foot or 50-foot progress we made, people would use it instead of walking in the sand,” he said. “We had people on bikes, people on foot, people with kids, you know, people with dogs, people with wheelchairs, three-wheel bikes, and so it was interesting.”

He said he’s glad to have the mats for when he hauls a wagon full of toys to the beach with his children.

“Anything we can do to lower barriers for access to the beach for everybody is a good thing,” he said.