Babbitt Tells Details Of Yosemite Changes Less parking, lodging -- more shuttle buses by Carl Nolte San Francisco Chronicle - March 28, 2000 Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt sketched out the details yesterday of the government's new plan for the future of Yosemite National Park, an idea that will change the ways visitors can use America's premier national park. Babbitt offered more information about the plan, which was revealed over the weekend. Parking in the Yosemite Valley will be cut by half, there will be fewer places to stay, and so much human development will be removed that even the superintendent will have to move out of Yosemite. "This is not about turning away people from their park," Babbitt said in an impassioned speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "The problem is not about too many people. It's about too many cars." Among the Park's Service's planned solutions: -- The new management plan with four alternatives. The "preferred alternative" would have a capital cost of $343 million with annual operating costs of $18.9 million -- nearly as much as the park's current $20 million budget. -- The Park Service wants to build a 550-vehicle day-use lot near Yosemite Village and eliminate most other parking in the valley. -- Housing for concession employees would be reduced by half and workers would be relocated to Wawona, El Portal and Foresta, outside Yosemite Valley. -- A new visitor and transit center would be built at Yosemite Village, but Park Service and concession headquarters operations would be moved out of the valley. Even the park superintendent would have to move out of Yosemite. "We want to set an example," Babbitt said. -- Day visitors would have to rely on a new system of shuttle buses from El Portal, Badger Pass and Crane Flat that would cost about $13 million a year to run. The new shuttle system would run in the summer peak seasons. -- The plan would allow the construction of 40 new units at Yosemite Lodge to replace rooms lost in the 1997 flood. The lodge would then have 386 units, more than at present but fewer than before the flood. -- About 200 housing units would be removed at the Housekeeping Camp and 180 at Camp Curry. The Ahwahnee Hotel would not be affected. The plan is a result of 20 years of off-and-on work by the Park Service. Most of the plans, said Babbitt, were never implemented. "We produced paper," he said. "We developed planning fatigue." The newest idea was met with a generally favorable reaction from a lineup of top environmental organizations present at Babbitt's Fairmont Hotel speech yesterday. "We have been waiting for this for 20 years," said Bill Meadows, executive director of the Wilderness Society. Even Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, praised the plan, albeit a bit cautiously. He thought there were too many rooms for the Yosemite Lodge, and he opposed widening Highway 140 from El Portal, but he said the club "welcomed the spirit of the plan." The Sierra Club had sued the Park Service to block earlier Yosemite plans on grounds they violated the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The Yosemite plan now is subject to a series of public hearings. If the plan meets with a favorable response, he said it will be adopted by the end of the year.