Yosemite Picks Company to Run 2-Year Bus Project By Mark Grossi The Fresno Bee - December 1, 1999 Yosemite Concession Services Corp. - the firm that provides most services inside Yosemite National Park - has won the competition to provide experimental bus service from outside the park. A transit board will be asked Monday to approve the Yosemite concessionaire for busing visitors who want to leave their cars in gateway communities and ride to the park, project manager Jesse Brown said Tuesday. VIA Adventures of Merced was the only other bidder. "The concessionaire has a lot to offer the project," Brown said. "And it's important to them because they have a financial and economic interest in getting people into Yosemite to eat in their restaurants and use their facilities." The bus project also is important to the transit board, which governs the sometimes controversial Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System. YARTS now consists of three counties and the National Park Service. Tuolumne and Madera counties left the group this year in disagreements over many issues, including the busing experiment. Merced, Mariposa and Mono counties, along with the park service, remain in YARTS. If the two-year experiment or pilot program attracts enough riders to justify continuing, busing could provide a way to keep many automobiles out of Yosemite Valley during crowded summer days. Almost 4 million visitors come to Yosemite annually, and about 70% of them pass through Yosemite Valley. The park concessionaire offered to do the job for $100,000 while VIA said it would need $331,000. YARTS will provide $100,000 in funding for the project. "It wasn't a simple issue, but it became pretty apparent in the process that the concessionaire would be the choice," Brown said. The concessionaire's bid incorporated the ticket prices that YARTS suggested. Round-trip adult prices would be $7 from El Portal, $10 from Mariposa and $15 from Merced. Student-children prices would be $6, $9 and $14, respectively. In a car, it costs $20 to enter Yosemite, so it would be cheaper for one person to ride the bus, rather than driving. But for three or more adults, the cost would exceed the price of entering in a car. YARTS officials say the bus will have advantages on crowded days because the park service will allow the YARTS buses into Yosemite, even if a temporary closure is invoked because of crowding. Bus service is expected to include a Highway 120 route from Lee Vining in the eastern Sierra. A route from the southern part of Yosemite on Wawona Road also is expected to be added. The service is scheduled to start on Memorial Day weekend next year and continue year-round for two years. The concessionaire most likely would use diesel buses, not clean fuel buses such as compressed natural gas, Brown said. Critics, such as Lou and Jeanne Aceto of Oakhurst, say they oppose diesel-fuel buses. "We don't think diesel buses are good for the park," Lou Aceto said. "Everybody is talking about what's good for the park, but there is a disconnect because they're talking about bringing diesel into a national park."