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By Mark Grossi
The Fresno Bee - May 8, 1998
Visitors will have the option of parking their cars and riding buses into
Yosemite National Park in 1999, but traffic may still force construction of
a 1,800-car parking lot in Yosemite Valley.
Yosemite visitors will have the chance to ride a bus during the busy summer months next year and get a discount on the national park's entrance fee, according to planners representing five counties and several government agencies.
The cost to ride and enter the park could be as low as $3 per person or $6 per family. Visitors currently pay $20 a car. No price has been set on the cost of the bus ride, though early estimates show a round-trip rate as low as $8. Officials are working to make the price as attractive as possible.
Will the idea divert enough traffic to prevent a parking lot from being built in Yosemite Valley?
Nobody knows.
During summer holiday weekends, such as Memorial Day, 25,000 or more people are expected to visit Yosemite Valley, a 7-mile-long and 1-mile-wide area with surrounding vistas of park landmarks.
Park officials, in their Yosemite Valley restoration plan, lean toward building the parking lot if busing does not clear up traffic in the valley. But they are still re-evaluating their options.
"I still don't know if [the parking lot] will be in our final document," park planner Jerry Mitchell said. "We like this new busing alternative, but no decisions have been made yet."
Outside the park, planners representing Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Mono and Tuolumne counties are holding off on long-term commitments, too. They want to know how many people are willing to ride buses from neighboring communities, such as Fish Camp, to Yosemite Valley.
If the response is good in 1999, the effort will expand.
"This will be a market-driven process," said Jesse Brown, project manager of the planning group, called Yosemite Area Transportation Strategy. If we have the interest, the system can expand."
The planners' busing effort is separate from the Park Service' valley restoration plan, which is being revised and prepared for a second period of public comment this summer.
Opposition to the parking lot surfaced in the first public comment period. The busing plan, on the other hand, draws applause from interest groups.
"They have put the pedal to the metal," said Jay Watson, California-Nevada regional director of the Wilderness Society, an environmental group. "They've traveled a huge distance in one year. We're pleased."
A year ago, the planners were considering several different options, including rail. Now, they will begin to look for a private contractor to supply buses to take visitors into the park.
Before deciding on the strategy, planners considered signs to send people to other places when the park was full. They also looked at a hefty $200 million bus plan that would have replaced cars in the valley.
Though no cost estimates are available on the current busing idea, it would be far less expensive than the $200 million plan.
If the idea works, many Yosemite interests hope it will end discussion of the parking lot at an undeveloped place called Taft Toe, across from El Capitan.
"We think there's no reason to build that parking lot," said Hal Browder of Coarsegold and a member of the Yosemite Restoration Trust, a park advocacy group. "We think the Park Service shouldn't even be considering it."
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