CARS TO GET THE BOOT
Cars are on
their way to the endangered list in three of the country’s most
popular parks. The National Park Service wants to replace private
cars with light rail in Grand Canyon and expand bus systems in
Yosemite and Zion national parks by 2000. “The problem isn’t too
many people, it’s too many cars,” Secretary of the Interior Bruce
Babbitt said when announcing the plan in Washington, D.C., last
fall.
Two million people a year visited Arizona’s
Grand Canyon in the early 1970s. Now the figure is 5 million, in a
park where 6,500 cars compete for 2,400 parking spaces during the
summer. At California’s Yosemite park, 7,000 cars crowd the scenic
1.6-mile loop road daily during the summer; 4 million people visit
the park annually. The transit plans are at draft stage, subject to
public comment and more study, and the timetable of 2000 seems
optimistic. Grand Canyon’s plan calls for a $67 million light rail
system that would carry 47,000 visitors a day from a transport hub
south of the park to the canyon’s South Rim, the most visited
section. Yosemite and Zion opted for cheaper shuttle bus systems.
“I’m hoping the tradeoff is a good one,” says Linda Wallace,
chairwoman of the Sierra Club Yosemite Committee in Davis, Calif.
“Certainly some will say (leaving the car behind) is too
inconvenient. But some people have stayed away because of
congestion, and there will be a lot of curiosity on their part when
Yosemite has fewer cars.”
To get on an
information and comment list, write Grand Canyon National Park,
P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023. Write Yosemite National Park
at P.O. Box 577, Yosemite, CA 95389, and write Zion National Park,
Springdale, UT 84767. Address all letters to the Office of the
Superintendent.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Cars to get the boot.
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