A Utah man believes he can solve Arches National Park's congestion problem without requiring a reservation system/NPS

A group opposed to seeing a reservation system instituted for Arches National Park is pushing a somewhat novel solution: park your car outside the park. Not only would the plan solve the congestion problem at Arches but, its proponents believe, it will create "the first fully sustainable, noise free, and zero emissions national park by 2030."

That's quite a pitch, one that envisions a massive parking lot on a former uranium tailings dump transformed into "Basecamp Moab," and self-driving electric vehicles that today are no more than a vision. 

"This involves thinking outside of the geographic area of the park and involves public-public-private partnerships," Michael Liss tells me while laying out the vision being carried to the National Park Service by "Arches For The People. "We are now doing all the groundwork to put a 2,000-car parking lot and visitors center across the street from Arches National Park, a half-mile south on (U.S.) 191 from the Arches entrance at the  Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action DOE site. Once we can get everyone parked, we can then offer multiple ways to enter Arches."

While some national parks are grappling with human crowds, at Arches in southeastern Utah the problem is vehicular crowds. With a very limited road system, built around the 18-mile-long main road, traffic can quickly slow to a crawl during the spring, summer, and fall seasons at the park's main attractions, such as Delicate Arch, the Windows Section, and Devils Garden.

To unwind that congestion, Arches staff has been developing a Traffic Congestion Management Plan to address vehicle traffic and parking congestion problems that they say affect visitor access, visitor enjoyment, and resource conditions.

The plan under consideration proposes a reservation system for entrance during high-visitation season and peak-visitation hours. This system would give visitors certainty of entry, reduce or eliminate long entrance lines, spread visitation more evenly across the day, and improve the visitor experience by ensuring available parking space, a park release said. 

Reservations would be required for vehicle entry between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., seven days a week during high-visitation season (currently March through October, but this may shift as visitation patterns change), and could be made online or by phone through www.recreation.gov. 

The parking area at the trailhead to Delicate Arch frequently is filled to capacity during the summer season/NPS, Jacob W. Frank

But the plan has raised concerns and drawn opposition, including from Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. In a letter (attached below) to Arches Superintendent Kate Cannon sent in December, the governor voiced doubts that "all feasible solutions have been explored," adding that "the plan lacks sufficient detail in critical areas."

"Among these critical areas is a concern that the plan may create unintended negative consequences in the community of Moab and on surrounding public lands," wrote Gov. Herbert. 

While the governor wants the Park Service to consider such things as another park entrance off U.S. 191 north of the current entrance and new trails that could help disperse the crowds, Mr. Liss believes there's a simpler solution, one that could bring additional jobs to the area while reducing vehicles in the park.

"We are still formulating our plan," he told me, "but the key element is the development of a new visitors center and transportation hub with 2,000 parking spaces one half-mile down U.S. 191 from the entrance to Arches National Park at the UMTRA tailings site to give visitors the choice to enter the park in one of three ways: 1) electric shuttle for no additional fee; 2) electric Jeep for a moderate additional fee (self-driving longer term); 3) keep your private car for a premium additional fee.

"This new transportation hub further facilitates our recommendation to prohibit the entry of oversize vehicles so we can optimize the parking on the existing asphalt in the park," said Mr. Liss. "For example, Devils Garden has 162 parking spaces, of which 84 are for oversize vehicles, so the optimized parking will result in at least 240 standard parking spaces, 47 percent more total parking spaces for just the cost of some paint."

The proposed transportation hub would be placed on a decades-old uranium tailings dump at the old Atlas Mill site along the Colorado River. The U.S. Department of Energy has budgeted $1 billion to remove an estimated 16 million tons of uranium tailings from the 480-acre, and is about halfway done with the project.

Because the site already is owned by the federal government, Mr. Liss believes it could be transferred to the Interior Department or possibly even Grand County, Utah, for the transportation hub once the cleanup is complete. When ready for development, the site would be used not only for parking for Arches visitors, but riverside restaurants could be built, new bike trails could connect to existing ones, there'd be room for small retail outlets, and it all would be solar powered by arrays located on site, he envisions.

Michael Liss believes a reservation system to enter the park would drastically impact tourism to Moab and the park/NPS

While the plan's finer details remain to be developed, the Moab man believes the necessary infrastructure on the site could be paid for either via a county construction bond paid off with transient room taxes, or from state funds earmarked for "recreational hotspot communities to reduce congestion, support economic development and support recreational tourism."

As for staffing, a concessionaire could be retained to collect park entrance fees as well as fees paid by vehicle rental operations and "fees collected from retail spaces for Moab area tour operator and adventure outfitters," explained Mr. Liss. "We propose this option to make visitors aware of all the things to do in Moab, to encourage visitor dispersion beyond the park."

Getting people from the transportation hub into the park could be done via shuttle operations or rental of electric Jeep SUVs the car company has on the drawing board, he said.

"Our proposed transportation options will be operated as private concessionaires. We look at the recent national park budget cuts as an opportunity for creative solutions and partnerships, not as a sign for the Park Service to raise the white flag in surrender and build a wall around the park," said Mr. Liss.

He also fears that if the park's reservation plan is implemented, it will be a death knell of sorts for Moab's tourism industry.

"We the People of Moab do not want Arches National Park to go down in history as the first national park to post a 'closed' sign at the entrance and kill the spirit of adventure and spontaneity of the American West, ending a 101-year National Park Service mandate of 'promoting the use of National Parks and providing for the enjoyment of the same,'" he said in a letter to Sue Masica, who oversees the Park Service's Intermountain Region.

"How about going down in history as the first national park with a custom fleet of electric Jeeps accessed with a Car Sharing mobile App?" the letter went on. "Let’s not just solve our popularity issue, let’s make Arches National Park a fun and awesome experience that lets you make a personal connection with the majesty and subtlety of nature even on the busiest day of the year."

While parks such as Acadia, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Rocky Mountain have turned to shuttle bus systems to help manage traffic and congestion, the staff at Arches concluded a few years ago that that was not a reasonable solution for their park.

Although it may seem that the shuttle would be the solution, the length of the park’s road system, a total of 52 miles, and the distance between several key areas in the park, planners concluded that in the best-case scenario it would result in a reduction of 23-28 percent of cars, require one-way travel times up to one hour and 20 minutes, and would require $3 million to operate during a five-month season under a service contract. This cost does not include purchasing and maintaining the 14 buses required to provide the service. Arches also looked at the shuttle operations at Zion, Bryce and Rocky Mountain national parks and noted that although visitors enjoyed this option, the pulses of 40 plus visitors who were dropped off on a trail at one time was causing resource damage and more crowding on the trails.

"We can solve the traffic congestion issues, and make Arches an even better visitor experience," ventured Mr. Liss. "Just the idea that you can get on and off your self-driving car or shuttle will get people out of their cars more to connect with nature, which is the whole point of visiting Arches in the first place.

"The more people connect with the Earth, the more of a chance we have for a civilization that understands that our future depends on living in harmony with the Earth and with each other."