|
|
|
|
|
| |
|||
Regional board will consider proposed schedule next month.
By Russell
Clemings
The Fresno Bee - July 18, 1998
Plans to start prying Yosemite National Park visitors from their cars face
a milestone next month when a regional transportation board votes on a proposed
schedule.
If the schedule is approved, buses could start rolling into the park next summer from Yosemite gateway towns such as Oakhurst and El Portal. But at first, only a few thousand passengers per day would be accommodated.
The announced strategy is to start small, then increase service in later years, said Jesse Brown, project manager of the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategy, the five-county consortium that would carry out the plan.
"We want to get people used to the idea," Brown said.
The plan is a sharp contrast to some ideas that have been discussed previously- such as a vast fleet of 348 buses costing $214 million to set up-and some that are still under review, such as an 1,800-space parking lot at Taft Toe in Yosemite Valley.
Instead, the new plan, which goes to the YARTS board for an Aug. 3 vote, would initially rely on private companies to provide the small number of buses needed to shuttle visitors into the park about once every 60 to 90 minutes.
Riders would be charged $8 to $10 per person, but instead of paying $20 per car to enter the park, they would be assessed $3 per person or $6 for a family.
One additional incentive for riding the bus, said Yosemite planner Jerry Mitchell, is that bus riders would most likely be guaranteed admission to the park, even on traffic-choked holiday weekends when other vehicles may be turned away.
In its earliest stages, Brown said, the bus service probably will be targeted mainly at hotel guests in the outlying communities and at park and park concessionaire employees who otherwise might drive their cars into the park.
Wilderness Society Regional Director Jay Watson, who joined Brown and Mitchell at a meeting Thursday with The Bee's editorial board, applauded the YARTS plan as a effort to reduce Yosemite traffic without forcing people to abandon their cars.
"I struggled with mandatory vs. voluntary for a long time," Watson said. "But I finally decided that for this to succeed it has to be acceptable to the public."
|
|
|
|