NADO Regional Development Digest - 10/05/2005 (Plain Text Version)
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Solving Congestion in National Parks
Zanetta Doyle, Editor
Everyone knows when summertime is in the air. Many families throughout the U.S. pack up the kids and head to one of America’s national parks for their summer vacations. Most do not pay attention to the small towns or communities that serve as the gateways to these parks. These gateway communities serve as portals to many of the nation’s most popular national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands. According to the National Park Service, there were more than 400 million recreation and non-recreation visits to the country's more than 300 national parks in 2004. While gateway communities serve as pathways to some of the nation’s most breathtaking landscapes, many also grapple with major road congestion during certain times of the year, and are left to figure out how to replace those tourism dollars during the off-peak seasons. J. Patrick Shea, Jr., project manager and technical specialist of the National Park Service’s Denver Service Center in Lakewood, Colorado explained that many factors have to come together when ensuring that the visitor experience remains positive, the landscape of the national park is preserved and the community that leads to the park can maintain some level of economic stability. “There are transportation challenges, but that is just one of many issues related to gateway communities,” Shea said. “There are common challenges in cities and outlying areas related to congestion, ensuring that the visitor experience is positive, preserving the resident’s quality of life and dealing with the economic impacts.” He suggested there should be a way to keep attracting visitors and preserve the special reasons why people come in the first place – the unique landscape. He added that solutions other than highway expansion should be considered. “You have to look at all options available because if you expand the road to a four-lane highway, then the uniqueness of traveling to the national park will be gone,” Shea said. “Thinking collaboratively is key,” he added. “This collaboration must involve the public, champions at the local level, landowners and other experts.” He also said that information sharing with the visiting public is important. There should be a way of offering visitors options to get to the park while also addressing the congestion issue. For example, is it necessary to drive, or can they park their cars and walk, or ride their bikes? Henry Hanka, director of the America’s Byways Resource Center in Duluth, Minnesota explained that these communities are the first thing that visitors see before entering the park, so the communities must focus on ways to enhance the visitors’ entrance experience like having a visitors center. “Gateway communities provide the first look, and visitors should have the unique experience that they are entering a very special place,” Hanka said. He added that it is important that gateway communities focus on traffic calming and a wise and efficient use of traffic signals and signage to help resolve congestion. Bryan Bowden, community planner for Mt. Rainier National Park said the park experiences its largest congestion spurts between Memorial Day and Labor Day. There has been discussion among city officials to build a multi-purpose visitor center in the gateway community of Enumclaw, Washington that will serve as information central for visitors. He emphasized that this is still in the discussion stage, but echoed the sentiment that finding reasonable ways to deal with congestion will only happen with collaborative partnerships. “We will have to find ways to manage it in a way that makes sense,” Bowden said. “The more attractive you make the community, the more attractive it is to drive your vehicle,” said Rick Adams, a local business owner in Elbe, Washington and a long-time advocate for promoting the infrastructure needs for America’s rural gateway communities. Adams also expressed the need for a collaborative effort between public and private sectors, and a better understanding of the communities’ needs among transportation planners. He also commented on the need to encourage local private sector investment. “If the economics do not work, locally generated taxes will be insufficient to support the expanded levels of public services necessitated by the increased number of visitors,” Adams said. Shuttle Service Provides Solutions to Congestion
When the system was first launched, there were only eight buses, according to Tom Crikelair, who serves as the transportation planner for the Acadia National Park and who also helped design and coordinate this system. Today there are 17 buses with plans to expand the system. A part of the system’s uniqueness is that it serves visitors and residents. The buses provide access to routes linking hotels, inns, and campgrounds with destinations to Acadia National Park and neighboring village centers. The buses run from June 23 through Columbus Day. Since its first day of operation, more than one million passengers have ridden the buses, 442,105 private vehicle trips have been eliminated, and 33.7 tons of smog causing pollutants have been reduced. “When we started we had 1,000 riders in the first week, but for 12 days this summer, we had between five and six thousand riders a day,” Crikelair said. He added that 20 percent of the riders are residents with junior high students making up five percent of the ridership. Various partners have contributed to the shuttle system since its inception. In 2005 alone, the Island Explorer received more than one million dollars in funding from numerous sources including the Acadia National Park, Maine Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Friends of Acadia, private businesses, individual donations, and the corporate sponsor, L.L. Bean. The shuttle bus is free. However, there is a $20 entrance fee into the park. Visitors can also purchase a $40 season pass or a $20 weekly pass, $10 of which goes to Acadia National Park.
For more information contact J. Patrick Shea at 303.969.2347 or patrick_shea@nps.gov; Bryan Bowden at 360.569.2211 or bryan_bowden@nps.gov; Rick Adams at 360.569.2772 or rbadams@mashell.com; Tom Crikelair at 207.288.0381 or tom@crikelair.com. This article is funded under an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration.
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