Improvements Pledged : U.S. to Charge Fees for Visits to Cabrillo Park

Visitors to San Diego’s famed Cabrillo National Monument will be charged entrance fees beginning March 1.

The fees will pay for improved educational programs and upgraded facilities both at the Point Loma site and at other parks nationwide.

The charge will be $3 per car, or $1 per individual, whichever is less, and visitors will be asked to pay on the honor system, monument superintendent Gary Cummins said Monday.

Cummins expects that monies will be collected from approximately 30% of the 1.7 million estimated visitors annually at Cabrillo. The monument site overlooking San Diego Bay is among the nation’s most-visited national parks.

“With an (estimated) $152,000 by Oct. 1, we expect to give free the informational brochures we have had to sell, to improve maintenance of the bayside trail, to set up better protection of our tide pools, and to increase the number and variety of our interpretive programs,” Cummins said.

The charges, to be implemented at most federal parks nationwide, result from complicated maneuverings between Congress and Reagan Administration budget planners over how to fund the U.S. Department of the Interior adequately in the face of tight budgets.

The Administration originally planned to divide use of the proposed fees between park improvements and reduction of the overall federal budget deficit. Congress balked, however, and mandated that the expected $54 million in fees collected go directly to improve park programs and resources management that in many locations have gone underfunded for several years.

In addition, Congress said the fees must supplement, not replace, the Interior Department’s general appropriations, prohibiting the Reagan Administration from trimming those appropriations by the amount gained from fees.

“And the department is adamant about not using the money for administration,” Cummins said. “That is why we are going to run the fee program at as low an overhead as possible, which is why there won’t be gates where we collect money.”

Instead, Cabrillo officials will set up a kiosk in the outdoor passageway leading to the visitors center where Cummins hopes people will pay.

“We are going on the honor system--this is not voluntary, the public has to pay it--but there aren’t going to be checkpoints and I’m not going to send rangers around chasing down people who are not paying the fees,” he said.

“Instead, we hope that people will see quick improvements and that we will get wholehearted support based on the benefits. I think $3 is a good bargain but the public will demand that things get better, pronto. I’d like to see us with five or six different interpretive talks--on the military, the tide pools, on bird identification, among others--and more frequency of presentation.

“Many people in the past have seen Cabrillo as just a scenic spot but we’d like to have enough going on out here to have people want to stay here half a day.”

Cummins said that visitors under 12 years of age, members of an educational group, senior citizens and people with $25 passes good for federal recreation areas nationwide will be exempt from the charge.

In addition, Cabrillo will sell an annual pass for $10 allowing unlimited visits to the monument.

With 1.7 million annual visitors, and an average 2.3 visitors per car, Cummins estimates that Cabrillo will collect $600,000 by Oct. 1, the end of the federal fiscal year. Of the total, $152,000 will be spent on Cabrillo programs, with the rest going for improvements at other parks in far worse condition financially than Cabrillo, including Yosemite and Yellowstone.

Some of the monies will be used to help out parks that cannot charge because of either practical considerations or legal prohibitions. Both the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area near Los Angeles and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area near San Francisco will not charge because there are too many entrances and exits, Cummins said. None of the Alaska parks will charge because the federal law that established them bars fees, he said.

Should Congress extend the fee program beyond Oct. 1, as expected, Cummins said that Cabrillo should be able to obtain additional monies indirectly through special national park funding categories augmented by the fees.

“We could get funds for exhibit rehabilitation and for bringing our museum up to date, especially to do a better job on our audio-visual productions,” Cummins said. “Our whale film is OK, but our film on (Juan Rodriguez) Cabrillo would bore anyone to death and really needs to be improved.”