Grand Teton National Park officials are not proposing to lower the number of people that can travel the Moose-Wilson Road corridor at any one time, but rather believe they have the tools to lessen their impact.
Through better designed parking areas, paving an unpaved section of the road, designated pullouts, and reduced speed limits park officials believe the current peak capacity of 550 people in the corridor can be handled without impacting the resources in the area.
Studies by the Federal Highways Administration "showed that average traffic volume in the corridor during the busiest times of the year was approximately 200 vehicles at one time," park officials said in a release looking at the road corridor. By using a 2.7-person mulitplier per vehicle, the staff came up with the 550 capacity limit.
The studies, based on 2013 traffic flows, showed that August was the most popular month for driving the scenic corridor that stretches from park headquarters at Moose to Wilson and Teton Village, with 198 vehicles on average in the corridor at any one time.
If the park resorted to a queuing system to control the number of vehicles on the road at any one time, "a wait would occur on 20 to 25 days of the season. These short waits (7-11 minutes on average) would only occur during the middle of the day, from roughly 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The queuing lanes would be designed to accommodate all waiting vehicles within the park."
However, the officials noted, if a queuing system was needed due to traffic patterns, park visitors might alter their behavior and avoid the road corridor during the busiest times of the day.
"The Draft Plan/EIS allows for adaptive management of the capacity. Through monitoring, if it is determined that observed conditions do not match desired conditions for the corridor, the National Park Service could adjust the capacity either up or down in order to meet the goals of the plan."
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Comments
This kind of idea sounds encouraging. I hope it passes muster and sets an example for other parks.
The idea of "carrying capacity" is a new concept to many Americans and the idea that there might actually be a limit based upon HUMAN carrying capacity may be an especially shocking idea to some. After all, aren't humans here to USE the earth?
After all, aren't humans here to USE the earth?
Yep, and as this example shows, with a little ingenuity and planning it can be done "without impacting the resources in the area." Shutting down access isn't the only alternative.
Yup. But there's a big difference between use and ABuse.
In Utah -- and several other western states -- the environmental motto is "Multiply, multiply and pillage the earth."
This is a step toward helping to at least slow that goal a bit.
Agreed. Use does not equal abuse
Really, can you show us where that motto is published and who created it?
More (paved) roads usually create more traffic, better designed (=bigger?) parking areas do the same - while speed limits are mostly ignored. Sounds like a bad plan for me.
"Through better designed parking areas, paving an unpaved section of the road, designated pullouts, and reduced speed limits park officials believe the current peak capacity of 550 people in the corridor can be handled without impacting the resources in the area."
Did no one read this statement? In short, the Asphalt Pavers Association, in "partnership" with the Federal Highway Administration, is proposing the elimination of wilderness. Get it? This is not about preserving wilderness just because the bureaucrats are using the term "carrying capacity."
Here's how to preserve that corridor, borrowing a quote from Joseph Wood Krutch. "Congress (and the public which elects it) can always be expected to hesitate longer over an appropriation to acquire or protect a national park than over one to build a highway into it. Yet there is nothing which so rapdily turns a wilderness into a reserve and a reserve into a resort."
You want to preserve this "corridor?" Tear the highway out, or, at the very least, make is so rutted and inconvenient that its "carrying capacity" is instantly reached. Otherwise, you know what you're going to get? Another Jenny Lake. Preservation does not begin with asphalt. It rather begins with common sense.
Believe me, once the road is "improved," the "peak capacity" will instantly change--up. That is history, and especially the history of this park. Jackson is driving the planners to make, yes, a Grand Teton Resort. The Park Service should know better, but also remember the state--Wyoming. They have always wanted a resort, as well.
Ed Abbey had it right when he opined that the Park Service never has enough money to find good solutions for problems, but always has money for more asphalt.
Political pressure to turn the Moose- Wilson Road into a turnpike has been terrific for a long time. At least the NPS is standing up to the pressure. For the time being, at least. And maybe, just maybe, if we are wise enough to start trying to educate visitors about the Enabling Act and its delicate balancing act; maybe if we introduce the concept of "Human Carrying Capacity," we might someday be able to call upon a wider segment of public support than is available now when so many are simply unaware of the challenges faced by park managers.
I suppose that political pressure is coming from those with the motto "Multiply, multiply and pillage the earth.". But then since you haven't been able to identify who actually uses that as a motto, I'll just put this last claim in the usual baseless accusation file.
I understand Alfred's point. To me, roads are like closets, no matter how big you make them, they will fill up. Alfred would prefer not to pave roads. He would appear to be in the minority as the paved road sections of the parks are the areas that 97% of the visitors stick too. There are massive areas that are infrequently visited and are virtually undisturbed. This project would appear to be a minimal one that "can be handled without impacting the resources in the area."
The pressure to accommodate ever-higher "visitation" has been a consistent issue in the national parks, including Grand Teton. No one knew that better (or fought harder against it) than Olaus Murie, who with his wife Mardy lived just off of the Moose-Wilson road. In 1951 he wrote to Conrad Wirth, the newly appointed director of the National Park Service, to protest plans to pave this road. He described how the existing dirt and gravel road “winds through the woods in such an informal manner, overhung with bushes, skirting beaver ponds, and in every way representing the kind of pioneer country road that appeals to the imagination of the poet and the artist." He observed that the road itself was in character with the old barns and cabins remaining from pioneer days. "Put this road on a streamlined pavement basis and this concept will be shattered,” he told Wirth. (Letter dated December 5, 1951, in Murie Center files.)
Murie, who had often come to the defense of Grand Teton National Park, believed that park administrators had agreed to leave the road in its relatively primitive condition. As Dr. Runte points out, attempting to accommodate more vehicles by improving the road will only increase traffic further, with the consequent loss of the very qualities the visitor comes to see.
Wirth, of course, went on to launch Mission 66, which laid more asphalt in the parks than ever before.
An excellent post, Fred. Once again, history proves to be the teacher. On these pages a few weeks ago, I was observed to be overly supportive of railroads, which were developers, too, my critics claimed. Consistently, history proves the biggest developer to be the National Park Service itself. Look at all of the books written by Frome, Lien, Runte, et al. In tandem, we have read thousands upon thousands of pages from Park Service files, all to note the exact same thing. When a preservationist writes, someone like Olaus Murie, he gets a brief reply--or none at all. However, when the chamber of commerce writes the superintendent, the reply is warm and lengthy. Unless the chamber of commerce is asking for preservation, which usually is not the case.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is now in the maw of the chamber of commerce--broadly defined to include every developer with a stake in the local economy, and thus the national park. I have watched it happen over 50 years. Just look at the language in these "planning" documents. Here we are invited to comment on the future of a "corridor." All of the language smacks of a city park. The planners get out their colored pencils, and there goes your WILDERNESS park.
I have no problems with access, but what Jackson wants is hardly access. A bicycle path is not access. It is rather to use the existing road. But someone got killed! It isn't safe to use the road! Yes, people do die on roads--in America, 100 people every day--33,000 people every year. But you do not solve that problem by giving every separate interest a separate swath of asphalt. You solve it by putting in public transportation, and then even the bicyclists can ride safely.
Jackson doesn't want this. Why not? Because that would be an automatic reservation system--resulting in fewer visitors--and they wouldn't be able to sell their cowboy hats or expensive steaks downtown.
The railroads didn't start that problem. The railroads came straight in. No stopping at every burger joint or ice cream shack along the way. There is why your chambers of commerce hate the railroad--and public transportation. I built a new car dealership and you won't stop? Why, just wait till I write my Congressman!
They wrote, and the railroads were torn up. Now only Grand Canyon has its original tracks. The track to West Yellowstone is gone; the track to Gardiner Gateway is gone. No options left but the car and "corridors." The people with the colored pencils have also gotten their way
It's cultural, and yes, historical. But there is the only way to solve the problem. Once a national park, always a wilderness park, or call it something else. If you want roads and bicycle paths running all over the place, call it Grand Teton National Preserve. For more information, write the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce. But if you call it a national park, run it that way--and stop kidding yourselves and history.
Dr. Runte's earlier comment cited Joseph Wood Krutch, which put me in mind of another quotation from that fine writer: "What our national parks and forests really need are not more good roads but more bad roads. . . . There's nothing like a good bad dirt road to screen out the faintly interested and invite in the genuinely interested."
We fought a similar battle down here in Utah in the 1980s over the Burr Trail, which local county commissioners wanted to widen and pave--right through Capitol Reef National Park. The part outside the park was paved, but thankfully not within it. It's still a pleasant and rather lightly used road.
Grand Teton faces much more development pressure, and I don't envy the choices they face. I suspect that the Park's resource staff would like to see controls on use but they may be overruled by their superiors, who often are more beholden to the winds of politics and economic development.