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SPRINGDALE — At the grand opening of the Zion National Park transportation system on May 26, 2000, the program noted that the park was going “back to the future,” not because park managers wanted to emulate Marty McFly or because they were even fans of the popular 1980s movie trilogy.
“The congestion, noise, pollution, and associated resource damage suggested that we go ‘back to the future,’” the event’s program read. “Beginning today, we visit Zion Canyon by shuttle to restore the tranquility and power of the early days of Zion National Park.”
That catchphrase meant that the park was hearkening back to a time when buses were the best way to see Zion – the 1920s and 1930s. To mark the occasion, a bus similar to those of the past, borrowed from Yellowstone National Park, was prominently displayed.
When the shuttle started, it was a lifesaver and nearly universally applauded – a way to protect the park’s resources as well as to improve the visitor experience. The impacts of the shuttle after its implementation were immediate in many ways – a quiet canyon, no fights over parking spaces, significantly fewer cars up Zion Canyon (only those with accommodations at Zion Lodge), the resurgence of some wildlife species and less damage to roadside vegetation, which mitigated erosion potential.
Now, 18 years later, it sadly is inadequate, but the park would be chaos without it.
Overall, however, it is the story of a major National Park Service achievement for an agency notorious for making big plans and not carrying them out. Case in point was a plan to reduce Yosemite National Park’s overcrowding in 2000, to which then Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt remarked, “We produced paper,” but developed “planning fatigue.”
Today the system itself is fatigued trying to handle nearly double the visitors (4.5 million last year) it was designed to accommodate (2.42 million in 2000) with the exact same fleet of buses.
Despite its current weaknesses, it was a groundbreaking concept and one current park managers are trying to tweak to keep the visitor experience it sought to improve still manageable.
Read the full story at St. George News.
