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By Ron Delacy
The Fresno Bee - October 2, 1998
SONORA - The Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategy's demonstration
bus system, which is supposed to start hauling tourists into Yosemite National
Park next year, probably won't.
A YARTS citizens advisory committee already has voted to delay the project,
and the board of directors is expected to follow suit at a meeting Monday
in Sonora.
"I won't be surprised if they say let's hold off for a year," said Jesse Brown,
executive director of the Merced County Association of Governments and the
staff director for YARTS.
The YARTS bus plan calls for starting with 16 buses next spring, picking up
passengers in Mariposa, Oakhurst, Groveland and Tuolumne Meadows. Cars would
not be banned from the valley, using the bus would not be mandatory and it
would grow only as fast as needed.
Tuolumne County YARTS board member Mark Thornton, a consistent dissenter in
votes to push on with the bus project, said he is "beginning to realize I
don't see what's here [in YARTS] to benefit Tuolumne County."
The YARTS board is made up of one representative from the National Park Service
and one from each of five surrounding counties-Tuolumne, Mariposa, Madera,
Merced and Mono.
But Thornton said the Merced County Association of Governments, the administrative
agency, is "running roughshod over the process."
For example, as part of Monday's meeting, Thornton said, he had wanted the
board to reconsider YARTS's short and long-range plans, which were approved
in August. But Brown refused to put the matter on the Sonora agenda.
"Here is an unelected official denying a county supervisor's legitimate request,"
Thornton said. "The Merced County Association of Governments has way too much
authority over this process."
Thornton said the memorandum of understanding among YARTS members expired
a year ago. When it finally comes up for renewal, "I am going to ask some
hard questions about why we are here."
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