Gridlock in the Parks

Anyone who has ever visited a popular U.S. national park on a weekend has probably encountered one of the National Park Service’s biggest problems: Just too many cars.

This month, Park Service personnel have convened a team dedicated to solving the problem. Traveler magazine invites you to add your own recommendations. We have opened a National Suggestion Box for you to offer your ideas, which we will relay to the Park Service.

The main challenge: How do you provide transportation into the parks that is more interesting, informative, and fun than driving your own car? (Glacier National Park has newly refurbished, open-roofed Red Buses, but other parks have no such fleet of historic vehicles.) What kinds of vehicles do you think would best fill the need, and for which parks? Should a shuttle into Acadia be different from one into Zion? What kind of experience would you like to have while riding in them? Talks by rangers? Entertainment? Videos about the park? Quiet?

In months to come, Park Service researchers will be surveying public opinion on access to the parks. This is your chance not only to propose solutions, but to help them ask the right questions.

This month, the Tourism Forum asks:  How would you solve gridlock in the parks?

—Jonathan B. Tourtellot

Jonathan B. Tourtellot is Traveler magazine’s geotourism editor.

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