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By Benjamin
Pimentel
San Francisco Chronicle - October 6, 1998
A plan to introduce seasonal bus service to reduce private car traffic at
Yosemite National Park next summer was postponed indefinitely yesterday.
Saying the park is not ready for the new system, an advisory group trying
to find ways to ease traffic congestion voted unanimously to delay bringing
in buses to transport visitors from the park's four gateways.
"This decision is binding," said Jesse Brown, project director of the Yosemite
Area Regional Transportation Strategies. "There will be no demonstration bus
service in 1999. But it didn't forgo one in 2000 or set a date for when it
will happen."
The advisory group had voted in August to start a summer bus service program
and had planned to try out the system as part of a demonstration project to
begin in June with 16 buses transporting more than 40,000 visitors.
Eventually, the park hoped to serve 1.4 million visitors annually.
But, Brown said, the group realized that there was not enough time to get
the project running, including coming up with a marketing plan. The park had
also hoped to set up a separate shuttle service within the valley to transport
visitors brought into the valley by bus.
"There were questions that would take longer than a year," he said. "It's
more that they want to feel comfortable."
However, Tuolumne County Supervisor Mark Thornton, a board member who opposes
the bus plan, said the vote could be the first step to killing the project.
"This thing has been put off for at least a year, maybe longer, and, in the
meantime, I can redouble my efforts in informing the public that the plan
has serious problems," Thornton said.
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