[PRCo] Re: A summer trip through the west

[Vigrass, Bill]

I participated in a symposium on accessing our national parks a few years ago at the National Bldg Museum, Wash DC.  Nat. Park people presented data and illustrated evidence that automotive traffic is so heavy at the more popular parks that it is destroying the parks.  The highway traffic, pollution from exhaust and oil drippings, is killing off plants.  Parking at popular sites has become impossible on busy days.   For instance, Yosemite now has more visitors per day than it had all season in the 1920's when the Yosemite Valley Railway ran two trains a day. (Big deal).
I advocated park and ride rather distant with rail access since railroads/railways "lie lightly upon the earth".  Rain falls through ballast into ground water.  This contrasts with rain falling on roads that washes petroleum products off the roads into roadside earth where it (1) kills plants and (2) seeps into the water table.

The Grand Canyon National Park had a proposal for light rail access but it has not been implemented because, I believe I recall, the senator(s) from AZ did not want it.

Yosemite has a bus system, and perhaps others do also.

The supt. of Yosemite said that they had 5 mile long traffic jams on the access road.  The Supt. of Smokey Mountain National Park said that he did not have 5 mile back ups.  He had 11 mile back ups.    So it is a widespread problem that causes problems beyond which he casual tourist can see.  

The basic problem is that some of the parks have become so popular that the very people they serve are destroying them.   The park service must walk a narrow plank to preserve the parks yet control the access in such a way as to not discourage the citizens/taxpayers who visit.  It is a difficult situation.

Bill V.   

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Subject: Re: A summer trip through the west


Hello again, John:

Maybe my point was improperly stated   Because of the do-gooders, we have a
policy that no cars can drive up and down the canyon road in Zion National Park
from Spring through Fall.   My complaint is really that the ruling is
inflexible.  I could go along with selling tickets ... your time is  10:55 a.m.
That would work fine.  I would have absolutely no problem with forcing people
into buses on busy days.   But the day I was there they were not particularly
busy ... the loads on the buses might have accounted for 30 automobiles an hour
... but the rules said it was summer and therefore we have to close down the road
to tourists.  Are tourists bad?  Yes and no, but they represent the only reason
we have national parks.  On the other hand, one must preserve the jobs of the bus
drivers and admittedly we cannot turn their jobs on and off as traffic demands.
It is an annoyance for which there may not be a solution.


AUREJOHN at aol.com wrote:

> My only basic flack for you is about automobiles.  What a shame all those
> OTHER DRIVERS were making the roads congested for you.  And those DO-GOODERS
> making you ride a bus in Zion instead of taking your own automobile through.
> The Highwaymen have the solution: make the roads wider.  Most everywhere,
> especially Zion, this solution only destroys what you were going to see.
> Maybe at Zion, let people drive - but sell tickets: your appointment is at
> 12:15 tonight.
>
> By "most everywhere," except at Zion, I'm mainly talking about the roads that
> are already six lanes wide.  Further widening I-5 through Seattle, for
> example, would tear down a fair amount of useful city - maybe it needs an I-5
> subway??  We are already going for the next Big Dig monstrosity: the ugly
> Alaskan Way Viaduct, built on the cheap 40 or 50 years ago, is an earthquake
> hazard and getting ratty to boot.  The favored plan is to replace it with a
> multi-level tunnel, and more lanes of course.
>
> East of Lake Washington there's the I-5 clone, I-405.  There's a
> multi-billion plan to widen this also.  Since there's really no there, there
> (call me West Sound prejudiced), maybe it's OK to tear down Bellevue and
> similar places for the project.
>
> The tunnel and its dual power buses were built for a political objective: the
> transit tax is collected throughout King County but most of the money is
> spent in Seattle.  It's obvious that, from an operating standpoint, the
> tunnel should have taken the existing trolleybus routes off the streets.  But
> what was "needed" was a project that benefits folks outside the city limits.
> Most tunnel routes would be ridiculous to electrify, even if the highwaymen
> would allow it over the freeways.  Hence the monster dual power buses that
> spend 5% of their time under wire.  Metro is planning to replace them with
> diesel hybrids .. there'll be so little noise, smoke and stink you'll hardly
> notice it!  What they should do is kick the buses out of the tunnel when they
> build rail.
>
> You want to talk about rail, visit Seattle.  You want to ride rail, visit
> Portland.
>
> J. Aurelius

I don't have any solution to urban freeway problems.  I don't think you do
either.  Americans (and the Europeans are following us) have dispersed ourselves
and our jobs over the landscape to the point that is neither cost effective nor
even affordable to have mass transit that can usefully connect more than one or
two percent of the Americans with their jobs.  I am simply echoing the same
frustration that we all experience when he get into our cars and become part of
the problem.

I don't think we have a solution.  We can blame the highway lobbyists, or the oil
companies, or those huge corporations that build automobiles, for the truth is
that no one can sell you a car if you don't want it.  We have all created this
problem.  You and I.

If there is a solution, it will not be pouring more concrete.  (Humble and vocal
opinion, of course.)  And it probably won't be more buses or rail cars.  But we
might be able to live with the situation better if we are willing to legislate
mandatory schooling of drivers (along the lines followed in Europe) and insist on
better enforcement of rules.  So what if you think it is unfair to be caught by a
camera as you sail through a red light.  Pay the fine and shut up.  We should not
need to listen to people cry fowl ball when they feel it is unfair that they were
caught.  I also believe in national standards for speed limits based upon lane
width, shoulder width, medial width and configuration, and traffic volumes ...
Nevada shouldn't be able to allow 75 mph limits with absolutely the same
conditions as calls for 70 mph in Missouri or 65 mph in Ohio.   Montana shouldn't
be allowed to ticket a driver for choosing a lane when he turns a corner, if he
can do that in 20 other states.  If Pennsylvania has a 3 second delay after one
direction has a red light before the other way goes green, shouldn't all states?
Or vice versa.  I can live with either.

I'm just happy to be retired and that I can roll over at 5:30 a.m.  and not have
to drive 35 miles to work every morning.

I'm having fun with the arguments I started.   This is how we learn.  Keep going.