'Poor, Shy Country Boy' Takes Charge of Yosemite Park service star is expected to revive traffic-control plan by Carl Nolte San Francisco Chronicle - October 8, 1999 Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt formally named David Mihalic as superintendent of Yosemite National Park yesterday, replacing veteran park executive Stanley Albright. Babbitt traveled to Yosemite to make the announcement, an unusual move that underscored his interest in moving ahead with plans to reduce overcrowding and traffic in the park. Mihalic, who described himself yesterday as a "poor, shy country boy,'' has been superintendent of Glacier National Park in Montana and is regarded as a rising star in the National Park Service. Babbitt picked him to put some life into stalled and controversial plans to restore Yosemite's natural beauty and figure out better ways to handle crowds of visitors. Only two years ago, the park service announced sweeping plans for severe restrictions on cars in the park. One of the proposals had been an extensive bus network to replace private cars. Babbitt said yesterday that the park service is still committed to the plan. However, it has been quietly scaled back and will begin next summer with a modest schedule of bus runs between the foothill town of Mariposa and Yosemite. The service will be operated by the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategy, or YARTS, a three-county agency that signed an agreement with the park service earlier this week. As the plan was originally conceived by the park service, day visitors would not have been allowed to take their cars into Yosemite. Instead, thousands of passengers would ride YARTS buses from three gateway areas on Highway 41 in Madera County, Highway 120 in Tuolumne County and Highway 140 in Mariposa County. However, the plans fell apart when it became clear that there was neither the money nor the political will for such a project. Both Madera and Tuolumne counties quit YARTS. "There is not a traffic congestion problem in the park,'' Tuolumne County Supervisor Mark Thornton said yesterday, "there is a traffic management problem. Mass transit tourism is not the solution.'' A controversial plan to build a parking facility and bus transfer station at a location called Taft Toe in Yosemite Valley is still on the books. Mihalic also inherits a series of lawsuits over park service decisions to widen Highway 140 and a plan to expand part of the Yosemite Lodge into a campground now used by rock climbers. The Sierra Club sued the park service on both issues and won favorable rulings on grounds that the park had violated environmental laws. The failed transportation plan and the lawsuits all happened on Albright's watch, evidently prompting Babbitt's decision to replace him. It was announced yesterday that Albright, a 40-year veteran of the service, would become an adviser to park service Director Robert Stanton on resource protection programs with an office in Yosemite. Mihalic was praised by Babbitt yesterday for his "wealth of knowledge and experience.'' "I'm just a poor, shy country boy from Montana, and the world out here in California moves pretty quickly,'' Mihalic said, "so I'm just going to have to get used to it.'' Mihalic quickly went to the top of the list when Babbitt began seeking a new leader for the troubled crown jewel of the National Park Service. He had experience handling a park with similar problems. "In the minds of many, Glacier National Park is second only to Yosemite in its complex people and political problems,'' Babbitt said. Chronicle wire services contributed to this report.