Video games, gas prices cut traffic to US parks
The number of visitors to nature-oriented national parks has been on the decline.
from the May 25, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
"But this represents only a down payment on what must be a multiyear, multipronged effort to restore our parks, which suffer from an operating shortfall in excess of $800 million annually," Mr. Kiernan said earlier this month as President Bush was visiting the national park site at Jamestown.
The Bush administration also has launched the "National Parks Centennial Challenge" to raise $2 billion in private contributions and federal matching funds as the park service approaches its 100-year anniversary in 2016.
That's still less than the cost of taking the family to see "Shrek the Third" (popcorn and sodas included), but other financial considerations may also be having an impact. Gasoline costs typical households about $1,000 more a year than in 2001, and AAA expects Americans to take shorter trips this summer. The cost of staying and playing in national parks – prices typically set by private concessionaires – has been rising, too.
It's hard to know how much all of this factors into the 5 percent decline in park attendance since 1999. The number of annual visitors to Yosemite has dropped 20 percent since 1996 (the year before the cost of a carful of visitors went from $5 to $20); Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Rocky Mountain are also down. Overnight park stays in particular have declined, according to the National Park Service.
Visitors to Yosemite seem unfazed by the entrance fee hikes. Another $5 wouldn't stop Plantikow – nor dozens of others interviewed – from returning.
"For the peace and serenity of being out here, I wouldn't have cared what they asked for," says Richard Smith, who drove up from Las Vegas.
In 10 days he's been tramping up every trail he can find, though it hasn't been cheap. "I had a wad of hundreds about that big when I started," he says, using his thumb and pointer finger to demonstrate a sizable roll, "and now I have about three of them left."
Sitting on a picnic table next to his F250 and his tent, he looks up at the towering pines with an expression that says it was worth every dime.
A past park survey in Yosemite didn't reveal discontent over the entrance fee, nor did the public comment period this time draw more than a few dozen objections, says Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman.
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