Who could have seen this coming.…..
The National Park Service has announced a proposal to more than double the peak-season entrance fees at the country’s busiest national parks, including Shenandoah, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon.
The park service said Tuesday that it needs the revenue expected from the fees to address its nearly $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance. But the announcement has been met with worries that higher prices will push the parks out of reach for many Americans.
I was honestly blown away that there was a $30 per vehicle fee to come into the Grand Canyon park last summer. For what amounts to a “day pass” for many people that’s ridiculous. Further, the camping fees are quite high and thus you would think they’d absorb the vehicle fee there, since you’re already paying to be in the park in the camping fee. And make no mistake — we’re talking about pay showers here when it comes to nickel-and-dimeing you to death — you have to toss $2 in for four minutes of hot water.
Doubling that is prohibitive for a whole lot of people, and in fact it’ll keep me out even though I can afford it. Beyond not buying the “deferred maintenance” argument (I sure as hell didn’t see evidence of that) there are all the nickel and dime “fees” along with rampant concessionaire granting that makes for utterly-silly pricing on anything inside (like a beer or a coke) more-akin to a football stadium than a national park.
Interestingly enough the one place this won’t hit is the Smokey Mountains. The reason is that in exchange for state support for cutting 441 over the pass between Cherokee and Gatlinburg both states required that the Federal Government not toll the road.
This post was published at Market-Ticker on 2017-11-11.
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