Babbitt Unveils Parking Plan for Yosemite

SAN FRANCISCO — For generations, a family day trip to the heart of Yosemite National Park has meant piling in and out of the car at Bridalveil Fall, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. Much of that day might also be spent on the lookout--not for bears or the California spotted owl--but for the ever-elusive parking space.

With a comprehensive plan released Monday for remaking Yosemite Valley, the National Park Service hopes to put an end to that scenario and forever change the way the public comes to Yosemite.

If the plan is adopted by park service management this year, the vast majority of visitors will leave their cars on the periphery of the park, potentially cutting traffic on the valley floor by 60%. Visitors would reach final destinations such as majestic El Capitan by shuttle bus, bicycle or on foot.

The proposal framed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in a speech before the Commonwealth Club is a compromise that has won over the broad middle in the national environmental community, but angered others who say it is either too restrictive of public access or not restrictive enough.

Babbitt insisted that the plan accomplishes the twin goals of restoring as much as 180 acres of wetlands, meadows and forests that had been overrun by buildings and human beings, while still allowing people ready access to Yosemite.

“People are welcome to their park,” Babbitt said. “We don’t manage national parks by taking the easy step of saying, ‘Stay home.’ That would just further the breach between Americans and their natural world.

“We can improve the visitor experience and at the same time we are recovering and restoring the landscape to something more approximating its original condition.”

The five-volume plan presented Monday presents five options, including leaving current buildings and management in the mile-wide, 7-mile-long Yosemite Valley unchanged.

The park service’s “preferred” option would make a number of significant alterations, including: eliminating more than 1,000 parking spaces in the valley and directing cars to lots in outlying El Portal, Badger Pass and Crane Flat; moving housing for about 600 employees out of the valley to nearby communities; closing 3.2 miles of one main road to cars and leaving the path for pedestrians and bicyclists; restoring parts of the Merced River by removing three of 11 bridges and a dam.

About 375 campgrounds lost in a 1997 flood would never be rebuilt and 10 others would be removed, cutting in half the number of camping sites that historically existed in the valley.

To accomplish these goals, other land on the valley floor would have to be developed with, for example, a new central parking lot for 550 cars and rebuilt units of Yosemite Lodge.

Babbitt said he is determined to see the proposal to its completion, after watching as other plans for Yosemite foundered. After three months of public hearings ending in early July, the plan must be approved by Yosemite’s superintendent and by the Western region chief of the Park Service.

Prospects for the Yosemite Valley plan got a boost Monday, when representatives of three major national environmental organizations--The Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Parks Conservation Assn.--stood alongside Babbitt and offered their endorsements.

“You don’t have to be a policy expert to realize this is great,” said Natural Resources Defense Council board member Christine Russell. “It means that future visitors will be able to get around the valley easily on foot, on bicycles or in shuttle buses. Instead of noisy traffic, they’ll hear birds and waterfalls and the Merced River running through the valley.”

On busy summer days, as many as 7,000 cars have crammed into the narrow valley and its two one-way thoroughfares. Dozens of buses sometimes had to line up at popular destinations like Yosemite Falls. Overcrowding procedures even allow closure of the valley to cars, although that hasn’t happened since 1996.

Critics said the plan is just the latest example of the Interior Department and park service moving ahead too quickly. They noted that the agencies had already printed the proposal even before all public comments had been received on the park’s last major plan, a blueprint for protection of the Merced River that is supposed to help guide all Yosemite planning.

A lawyer for Friends of Yosemite Valley suggested that the park service was “circumventing the entire public process” by pursuing a macro plan for the valley without a plan for its principal river. Attorney Julia Olson called the move “totally illegal” and said critics might sue to stop the plan.

Lawsuits have played a major role in redirecting Yosemite planning efforts in recent years. Widening of a major route into the park, California 140, was stopped by litigation. Another suit prevented reconstruction of much of the flood-damaged Yosemite Lodge, because critics said it was clearly in a natural area that should remain open.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said his group liked many of the plan’s proposals but probably would object to bringing in larger and faster buses, to rebuilding Yosemite Lodge and would question the placement of the lone day-use parking lot. Other club members have called for stringent caps on park visitation or vehicle traffic.

Representatives of the rural “gateway” communities near Yosemite, meanwhile, expressed fears in the other direction--about too many restrictions by the park service.

“The American people are in love with their vehicles and it is going to be very hard to get them out of their cars and get them on a bus,” said Mariposa County Supervisor Garry Parker, “especially with strollers and picnic baskets. I think the traveler might look at this and say ‘It’s just easier to go somewhere else.’ ”

“I think it could hurt the businesspeople of the surrounding communities.”

Mark Thornton, a supervisor in nearby Tuolumne County, said that there has never been enough day-use parking in the valley and that a less elitist plan would consider adding more parking for day visitors, who make up the vast majority of the park’s audience. “Why not consider moving this entire city of employees and others off the valley floor and dedicate that to day visitors, who are the biggest users of the park,” Thornton said.

U.S. Rep. George Radanovich (R-Mariposa) said the park service had not spent nearly enough time trying to resolve traffic problems without removing cars or parking. He said he would fight for better traffic planning, before supporting a move to reduce the number of cars.

Babbitt said that his agency wants to hear the public’s views on Yosemite, but that he is convinced that development and automobile traffic are excessive.

“The area is equivalent in size to Central Park in New York City but with more roads, more automobiles and more development than in Central Park,” Babbitt said. “There is a certain irony that you would find more solitude in the Sheep Meadow in the midst of New York City then in [Yosemite] Valley.

“We must restore a semblance of nature to this most sublime place in our country.”

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Remaking Yosemite Valley

Here are some of the provisions in the Yosemite Valley plan draft:

* The number of parking spaces for day use would be reduced from more than 1,600 to 550, all at Yosemite Village.

* The number of lodging rooms in the valley would be reduced from 1,260 to 981 by removing cabins at Curry Village and Housekeeping Camp. Yosemite Lodge would be allowed to replace more than 100 units lost to a 1997 flood, bringing to 387 the number of rooms.

* A 3.2-mile section of Northside Drive, a main artery through the valley floor, would be eliminated and replaced with a paved foot and bike trail.

* About 180 acres would be restored to a natural state, including Ahwahnee and Stoneman meadows, by removing roads, trails and some buildings.

* Three bridges and a dam would be removed to reduce erosion along the Merced River. A 150-foot-wide protection zone would be imposed along most of the river and almost all development moved outside that zone. Indigenous shrubs, willows and black oak trees would be planted.

* Campsites would be reduced from 475 to 465. More than 100 would be walk-in campsites, accessible on foot but without nearby parking. Another 375 campsites lost in a 1997 flood would not be rebuilt.