Posted on 12/29/2014 9:10:28 AM PST by jazusamo
The NP system is a magnificent national treasure and there is no good reason for conservatives to be negative about them. As for the NPS, they don't invent parks, they are simply made responsible for decisions made by Congress and the president.
The park rangers I have met have been uniformly helpful and courteous and obviously love the land. Would that some others around here did the same.
If memory serves me correctly Clinton signed many of the national parks over to the UN during his administration. Yosemite, for example, had a sign at the entrance (which has since been removed) stating that it was a UN park. So much for privatizing.
Run the fee up to about half the price of a hotel stay. Then, only the regime-supported worthy will be present in the parks. No more scary peasants.
I have been to the Grand Canyon since I was 10 years and have seen the progression. As a matter of fact, a good portion of the park was closed the last time we visited because of the expansion. It was pretty much a waste of time for us because of the closure. Who knows how many millions of dollars were spent on the new buildings, bike paths, nature walks, nature center, etc. etc. Costly to build, costly to maintain. Needless to say, I won't be returning.
Maroon Bells, which is a state park, suffers from the same “grand plans.” The park is closed to regular traffic after 9am and people are only allowed to enter by purchasing a bus pass and riding a bus.
Bottom line: I don't want to see a park from behind the glass window of an air conditioned bus.
If the trend continues, I fear that the fees will continue to increase and there will be a move to permanently close off portions of the parks effectively driving people away.
I absolutely agree. But voice such an idea to a typical liberal, and be prepared for a meltdown.
Any such program need not be traumatic, nor any great impact to the public (other than improving the federal balance sheet). Let's apply a few numbers to a hypothetical sense.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park encompasses 43,560 square miles, or about 27,878,400 acres. Let's think in terms of a hotel/golf resort or two, carved out of a tiny part of the park -- I'll get to how tiny below.
A good quality 18-hole golf course can be built on 150 acres or so. A 36-hole course, plus a few pools, a dozen tennis courts, a clubhouse, and a luxury midrise hotel, and you're at 1000 acres or so. Add 500 residential lots, and say 2000 acres. Build two such resort communities, and you're using 4000 acres. Add room for access roads and buffers, and call it 5000 acres.
So, two 36-hole golf resorts with hotels and private residential lots, and you're taking less than .02% of the park. Yep, less than two one-hundredths of 1% -- which would be purchased from the Park Service (or the Federal Government at large), and which would generate property taxes and sales taxes forever.
Consider, also, that these developments would not remove prime parcels of land from the Park -- you're not going to build a resort on top of Clingman's Dome. Rather, the resorts would logically use land near the U.S. 441 entrances to the Park near Cherokee, NC and Gatlinburg, TN. If so positioned, such resorts could serve as buffers between the park and the kitschy collection of casinos, fast food establishments, and tourist traps that come up to the park boundaries.
Turn the national parks into Disneyland where only rich foreigners can afford to visit (except on gay days).
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