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Park Officials Consider Moving Site from Taft Toe
By Russell
Clemings
The Fresno Bee - August 5, 1998
National Park Service strategists are rethinking plans for a vast parking
lot in the Taft Toe section of Yosemite Valley following approval this week
of a prototype regional bus system.
The bus system isn't expected to carry large numbers of visitors into the
park for several more years, it probably won't operate in winter and riding
it will be strictly voluntary.
But by ferrying crowds into the park during the peak summer season, the system
is expected to reduce the need for parking within Yosemite Valley to perhaps
half of the 1,800 parking spaces that were proposed for the Taft Toe lot.
"There will still be parking in the valley, but it won't be a 1,800-space
lot," said Wilderness Society regional director Jay Watson, who monitors the
park's planning.
Moreover, Yosemite planning chief Jerry Mitchell said officials may also conclude
that the new, smaller parking lot could be located in a less environmentally
sensitive place-perhaps at an already disturbed site known as Pohono Quarry.
"This gives us the opportunity to look at some of the alternatives through
different eyes," Mitchell said.
Though Monday's action approving the bus system wasn't a surprise, it was
still a milestone in a Yosemite Valley planning effort that dates back a quarter
of a century.
The bus system, designed by a coalition of neighboring government officials
called the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategy, will begin rolling
next summer on a limited basis.
At first it will serve mainly motel guests in places such as El Portal and
Fish Camp, but in later years it is expected to carry as many as one-third
of the park's 4 million annual visitors.
It also simplifies the park's decision-making in its own effort to make extensive
changes in parking, traffic flow and other visitation patterns within Yosemite
Valley.
Late last year, when the park service released its current draft plan for
those changes, the leading alternative called for the huge Taft Toe lot to
be created unless a bus system big enough to handle most of the park's visitors
was created by 2001.
Either option would permit removal of more than 2,000 spaces from prime scenic
areas in the east end of Yosemite Valley. But the parking lot drew strong
opposition, mainly from environmentalists who objected in large part to the
site-a mostly wild area near the El Capitan bridge.
Now, with a less extensive bus system taking shape, park officials appear
ready to settle for half of everything-a smaller bus system, a smaller parking
lot and a slower schedule for getting all of ache pieces in place.
"This is what we have been trying to show for the past year -a willingness
by the National Park Service to work with the regional transportation people,"
Mitchell said.
Still, some advocates at both ends of the spectrum are disappointed. Business
interests in the southernmost gateway city, Oakhurst, voiced concerns that
the voluntary bus system might eventually be turned into a mandatory one.
"If this is going to be implemented as a voluntary program it will fail miserably,"
said Paul Ratchford, general manager of the Tenaya Lodge hotel in Fish Camp
"I think this is the foot in the door for the park service to eventually have
a mandatory transportation system," he said, adding that "the hidden agenda
is to get to all busing with no private vehicles" - an allegation the park
service denies.
Meanwhile, on the environmental side, Yosemite Restoration Trust president
Janet Cobb she was disappointed in Monday's vote for exactly the opposite
reason-her group wants bus ridership to be mandatory for Yosemite visitors.
"We're very disappointed that the park service now says it's going to be a
voluntary system," Cobb said. "It needs to have some teeth in it."
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