Yosemite Parking

Re your Aug. 15 editorial, “Busing to Beauty”: The whole notion that Yosemite Valley is overflowing with cars is a myth. Your selection of photos is a gross misrepresentation of the current situation. I have been in the valley 12 times this season and never had a problem parking where I wanted to. In fact we joke that “my spot” is available again right next to the store.

Get the real facts found in the National Park Service’s own traffic survey. It states there were five days in all of 1995 when traffic gridlock occurred. It was in very limited areas and in my opinion due to poor road/intersection design. Since the flood and subsequent removal of nearly 40% of the valley campsites and numerous lodging units, the traffic has been reduced and parking is not a problem 98% of the time.

Please urge the NPS to invest the $178 million on trail improvements, interpretive programs, museums and adequate housing for dedicated employees, not parking lots for noisy, smelly, inefficient diesel buses that will be empty the vast majority of the time.

JEFF HORNACEK, Dana Point

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Strategies for mass transportation into Yosemite have been studied extensively for the past 30 years and none have proven practical because of logistics, costs and technical feasibility. Traffic resulting from overnight visitation stabilized years ago because of the limited availability of such accommodations and campsites. Increasing levels of day-use traffic inside the park need to be correspondingly limited by advance reservations.

LAWRENCE S. CRANE, Los Angeles