[PRCo] Re: A summer trip through the west

[Fred Schneider]

I agree.  But Yosemite is next to population centers.  Zion is in the middle of no where in Southern Utah.
  The Great Smoky Mountain National Park sits between two major expanding industrial centers ... Tennessee and North Carolina.  We cannot treat each one the same way.

The visibility from the buses at Zion is atrocious too.  You are there to see the vertical walls of the canyon but the side windows of the bus only lets you observe the lower few feet of the walls.  You return to the visitors' center having seen nothing unless you get out at every stop and wait 10 minutes for the next bus.   I seem to recall that Glacier National Park used to have some open topped Whites way back when.  I do recognize that you would probably need to totally redesign the bus structure (and add or strengthen a frame) if you wish to remove the roof, but if you
expect people to go away happy, it would help.  And yes, maybe we need to charge higher admissions if we do it right.  (I don't care about that; I have one of those lifetime old farts passes.)

Thanks for firing back, Bill.

We'll solve all the world's problems.


"Vigrass, Bill" wrote:

> 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.
>
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