A day at Disneyland costs a
family of four at least $232, not counting Mickey Mouse ears. At
Six Flags Magic Mountain, the admission price would be at least
$180.
A seven-day pass to enter Yellowstone National Park
costs $25 per car, which means that the same family spending a week
among bison, elk, geysers and grizzlies would pay the equivalent of
89 cents per person, per day.
No matter how you measure
it, national parks are a recreational bargain. Sure, it costs money
to drive or fly to them, and more to stay overnight once you’re
there. But all destination attractions have costs associated with
their enjoyment. The price of admission is but one part of the
overall cost of a visit, and in the case of the national parks,
it’s a minor one.
Which is why it’s
perplexing to see such an outcry over news that the Park Service
wants to raise entrance fees at 135 sites over the next two years.
Since superintendents at the affected parks began notifying their
neighbors earlier this year about the planned increases — a task
apparently handed them by administrators in Washington, who never
made a formal announcement of the proposal — critics have
condemned the plan for a number of reasons.
Their
principal arguments are economic: Tourism-dependent communities
fret that higher fees will reduce visitation and cut into profits,
while others argue that the increases will keep out those of
limited financial means.
It’s true, in theory at least,
that raising the price of something should decrease demand for it.
And those who claim fee increases will keep people away from parks
point to data they believe supports their assertion: National park
visitation has declined since Congress authorized a round of price
increases in 1996 under the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program.
National park use peaked in 1999 at 287.1 million visits.
It than began a fairly steady decline, totaling 272.6 million in
2006. That 5 percent decline came during a time when the U.S.
population increased by 6 percent. But it’s simplistic to conclude
from the data that higher prices alone are keeping people away from
the parks. Other factors must be at work.
For one thing,
park system visitation rose in the first two years after the Fee
Demo law was passed. And in a 2002 report to Congress on the
program, federal land-management agencies found no significant
difference in visitation trends between Fee Demo sites and
locations where fees had remained unchanged. It’s equally telling
that visitor counts at Great Smoky Mountains, the most heavily used
national park, also dropped from 1999 to 2006. But higher entrance
fees can’t be the reason, because Great Smoky Mountains charges no
entry fee.
The argument that fee increases will prevent
working-class families of limited income from enjoying public lands
also is unpersuasive, for it ignores the broader economic context
in which those fees are imposed. For example, the current Park
Service proposal is to raise the $20 Yosemite entrance fee to $25
in 2008. Other popular parks in the West would see similar
increases: From $20 to $25 at Zion, $10 to $20 at Arches and
Canyonlands. In strict percentage terms, those are pretty big
boosts, and business interests in nearby towns have voiced loud
opposition. But according to the AAA’s fuel-cost calculator, a
round-trip drive from Los Angeles to Yosemite in a two-year-old
domestic minivan will eat up $124.56 worth of gasoline. A $5
increase on top of that is unlikely to be the deciding factor when
a family considers whether to plan a Yosemite vacation.
There are probably many factors contributing to the nationwide drop
in park visitation: overcrowding at popular sites, an aging
American population, and competing opportunities — what
researchers have dubbed the “nature vs. Nintendo” effect.
The trend is troubling in that it could signal a weakening of the
personal connection and commitment Americans have to the great
treasures of our natural, historical and cultural heritage. On the
other hand, it’s absurd to expect a finite amount of parkland to
accommodate a continually increasing number of people. Anyone who
has driven into Yosemite Valley on a holiday weekend is unlikely to
regard a drop in park visitation as entirely a bad thing.
Slightly higher user fees are unlikely to have much effect on park
use, but they could have a significant effect on the quality of the
park experience. Most of that money will stay at individual parks,
where it can be spent on upkeep and repairs — the sort of
unglamorous expenditures that typically get shortchanged in the
politically driven federal budget process. Smaller crowds and
plumbing that works — what’s not to like?
John
Krist is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is a columnist for
the Ventura County Star in California.
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