Trouble in Paradise : Debate Intensifies on Solving Yosemite’s Traffic Woes

Traffic jams in Yosemite Valley have Park Supt. Robert O. Binnewies envisioning a high-tech mass transit system to shuttle visitors around on smog-free electric buses.

Others, like park research scientist Jan van Wagtendonk, say that traffic congestion is only a symptom of mass urbanization. The solution, Van Wagtendonk says, is “to go low-tech. . . . We must limit the numbers of people we allow in and provide them an opportunity to get out of their cars and see the park.”

While the high-tech, low-tech debate is new, the traffic problem in this, the most-visited national park in California, is at least 25 years old--and so is the struggle to find a solution. Two recent events have focused new attention on Yosemite’s traffic:

- On Memorial Day, 1984, thousands of vehicles gridlocked for four hours in Yosemite Valley, the worst traffic jam ever. To avoid a similar snarl this spring, rangers set a limit on the number of cars that can enter the valley.

“Any time the number of cars exceeds the valley’s parking capacity, motorists will be turned away,” said Ranger Bruce Fincham, head of the special task force studying traffic congestion. So far, rangers have not been forced to invoke the limits.

- Newly appointed National Parks Director William Penn Mott made $700,000 available to speed up the lagging efforts to solve overcrowding in Yosemite Valley, indicating that he wants congestion greatly reduced or eliminated by 1990, the park’s centennial year.

Visitor limitations in Yosemite are not new--permit and reservation systems have limited access to valley campgrounds and park wilderness areas for years. But if rangers have to hang out the “Sorry, No Vacancy” sign in Yosemite Valley, it will be the first time the public has been turned away from the very heart of a national park.

Such a closure would affect only those wanting to enter the granite-walled valley for the day. They would be directed to other areas of the park. Visitors holding confirmed reservations in Yosemite Valley would still be allowed to enter.

Yosemite’s traffic problems date back at least to the late 1950s. Old-timers here talk about huge snarls each evening when thousands tried to park near Stoneman Meadow and Curry Village to watch the famous fire fall, a cascade of hot coals from Glacier Point to the valley floor, 3,000 feet below.

Until the late 1960s there were no limits on the numbers of people who could crowd into campgrounds. Bumper-to-bumper traffic frequently stopped as tourists fed the bears. Over the years, more hotel rooms, swimming pools and restaurant facilities were built to accommodate the growing crowds.

The fire fall was canceled in 1969, mainly to relieve congestion. Later, a one-way traffic pattern was put in place in the valley, a reservation system was adopted for campgrounds and free shuttle buses were introduced. Feeding the bears was outlawed.

But these actions hardly kept pace with the increasing congestion as visitor use topped 2 million a year late in the 1960s and continued to rise. More than 3 million visitors are expected this year before the first snowfall.

Realizing that it could not accommodate such increased use and preserve Yosemite Valley, the National Park Service in 1980 adopted a master plan that called for a reduction of urban services. One aspect of the plan was removal of all auto traffic from the valley in favor of a park-and-ride mass transit system. However, the price tag on that was put at more than $100 million, and the policy was quietly shelved not long after it was announced.

There the issue remained until Binnewies announced before the Memorial Day weekend this spring that visitors would be turned away from Yosemite Valley once the 5,000-car parking capacity had been reached.

The well-publicized notice seemed to be enough to frighten many tourists away. The parking lots didn’t reach capacity either on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Even so, rangers say it is only a matter of time before they will have to turn people away.

Conservation groups support both the creation of an auto-free environment in Yosemite Valley and the current plan to restrict traffic.

‘Crowded With Cars’

“Yosemite Valley is not crowded with people, it’s crowded with cars,” said Destry Jarvis, vice president of the Washington-based National Parks and Conservation Assn., an organization devoted to preservation of the nation’s 334 parks, monuments and recreation areas.

Jarvis was critical of the Park Service, contending it was never committed to a master plan that would cut off auto traffic in Yosemite Valley. But he praised Director Mott for sending “a strong signal to go ahead.”

In a telephone interview from his Washington office, Mott said he wants to eliminate traffic congestion not only in Yosemite but in other national parks as well.

“Most visitors are from urban areas and are used to being stuck in traffic,” Mott said, “so they aren’t upset by traffic congestion in places like Yosemite.” Still, he sees the need to establish “carrying capacities” for popular parks.

California Limits

Mott said a limit may one day be placed on the number of California residents who could use Yosemite at one time, leaving more room for out-of-state tourists. “We may have to tell California people that they can only visit the park one week a month in the summer or something like that,” he said.

The Yosemite National Park & Curry Co., which operates the hotels and other resort facilities in Yosemite, favors the reduction of congestion, according to Tom Williams, hotel division manager.

However, Williams said the Curry Co. is not entirely happy with the way in which the Park Service is searching for a solution. “They’ve talked and talked about 15 different ideas,” he said, “but they still aren’t sure which one would work best.”

For more than a decade the Curry Co. has operated federally funded shuttle buses in the valley and would like to expand the free service.

No ‘Solid Answers Yet’

Binnewies acknowledged that “we still don’t have any real solid answers yet.” But there has been no money for planning or implementing long-range solutions, the park superintendent said.

Now that Mott has ordered an aggressive attack on the problem, a Yosemite task force is making a detailed study of traffic flow and looking at alternative transportation systems. But so far the results are not too promising, according to Ranger Fincham, the task force leader.

“The current mass transit systems are just not suitable for our needs,” Fincham said. As a result, various long-range plans are still just in the talking stages.

One of the most promising systems seen so far by park planners would use electric buses that recharge their batteries as they move, drawing power from underground cables. But it is still in the experimental stages. Experts predict it will be at least a decade before such buses are commercially available.

“Unless new technology rescues us, we may have to impose a hotel-like reservation system on all access to to Yosemite Valley,” Fincham said.