Atlantic City Boardwalk

Atlantic City, New Jersey · Accessibility score 5/5

Address: Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ 08401

Phone: (844) 855-6338

About

The Atlantic City Boardwalk opened on June 26, 1870, as an eight-foot-wide temporary wooden walkway built to keep sand out of hotel lobbies and train cars. It has grown into what Wikipedia and the city's own tourism office both call the longest boardwalk in the world, running about five and a half miles along the New Jersey shoreline.

Most visitors only cover a mile or two of it, the stretch through the casino district where hotels, taffy shops, and arcades line both sides. Rolling chairs, wicker seats pushed by an attendant, have carried passengers along the Boardwalk since the 1880s and are still one of the main ways to get around without walking the whole distance. Steel Pier, open since 1898, sits partway along the route with rides and an observation wheel that the operator advertises as the third largest in the country.

Beach access runs off the Boardwalk at marked cross streets. The city's tourism office lists beach access ramps at Caspian and New Hampshire Avenues and 175-foot access mats laid over the sand at Tallahassee, Bartram, Albany, and Raleigh Avenues, spread across the eleven beach districts between the Absecon Inlet and the Ventnor border. Restrooms sit at several of the same cross streets, open year-round at New York, Mississippi, and Chelsea Avenues and seasonally elsewhere.

Casino hotels back directly onto the Boardwalk for much of its length, so food and lodging are dense along the route: taffy counters, boardwalk fries stands, and restaurants inside the resorts. Atlantic City is about an hour's drive from Philadelphia and roughly two hours from New York City by car. The Boardwalk is the main pedestrian route linking the casino district to the beach and to the Absecon Lighthouse near its northern end.

Accessibility

The Atlantic City Boardwalk itself is wide, flat and generally easy to use in a wheelchair, though accessibility varies once you step off it into individual casinos and shops.

Parking is available at the Atlantic City Convention Center and Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall, both listed as ADA compliant by the city's tourism office, along with metered street parking near the casino district. The Boardwalk has barrier-free entrances at the streets that cross it, and city sidewalks have curb ramps at most intersections, though wheelchair users report a few corners without cutouts.

The walking surface is wide wood decking, which wheelchair and scooter users describe as easy to roll on. ADA compliant restrooms sit along the Boardwalk at Caspian, Albany, Chelsea, Mississippi, New York, Garden Pier, New Hampshire, and other numbered avenues, open year-round at three of those and seasonally at the rest.

For the beach itself, ramps and 175-foot rollout mats cross the sand at Tallahassee, Bartram, Albany, and Raleigh Avenues, and the Beach Patrol lends out beach wheelchairs at Mississippi Avenue on a first come, first served basis. Call the Atlantic City Beach Patrol at (609) 347-5307 to check availability before you go. The Convention Center offers motorized scooter and wheelchair rentals, braille signage, and assistive listening devices for events, and most casinos will lend a wheelchair at the front desk if one is available. Service animals are welcome at the Convention Center and Boardwalk Hall.

If you need an accessible hotel room, ask specifically when booking. Wheelchair users stress that you need to request a wheelchair friendly room rather than assume a casino hotel has one ready.

Checked by Accessible America, August 2026. Report a change

How we checked this

We checked these details against official information from the venue and public agencies:

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