Grand Canyon, other parks float entry-fee increase

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Grand Canyon, other parks float entry-fee increase
By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press | November 7, 2014 | Updated: November 7, 2014 4:33pm

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Visiting the Grand Canyon and other national parks could get a little pricier.

The National Park Service said 115 of its 401 units plan to seek public comment on entrance fees that could go up starting next year. It's part of a broader effort by the agency to bring in more money for visitor services and start addressing a backlog of projects ahead of its centennial.

"Obviously everyone would love to have fees not go up, but we also know the reality is budgets have been static and tight," said Patrick O'Driscoll, a spokesman in the agency's Intermountain Region based in Denver. "Fees are one of the only ways that parks can try to catch up with some important improvements, badly needed upgrades."

The Grand Canyon announced a proposal Friday to increase its single-vehicle entrance fee from $25 to $30 for a seven-day pass. Efforts to raise fees at other parks across the country will be wide-ranging but cannot top certain limits. The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion and Sequoia are among 10 parks where proposed entrance fees will be capped at $30 per vehicle or $15 per person, for example, the Park Service said.

About 130 national park units charge entrance fees, and they are able to keep 80 percent of those fees for use within the individual park. The other 20 percent goes into a pool and is distributed to parks that don't charge visitors to enter.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Grand-Canyon-other-parks-float-entry-fee-increase-5878614.php

[JimDandy]

1. They already priced the poor out of park access with their current fee

so I guess now it's time to try to price some more people out of our National Parks. Hooo ray!

[FailureToCommunicate]

11. Really? And you know this how? People spend more than that on a pizza dinner

The national parks are treasures secured for 'the rest of us' (including "the poor&quot

Amerca's 'best idea':

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/about/

[DeSwiss]

14. ''Really? And you know this how? People spend more than that on a pizza dinner''

- Not everyone can afford pizza.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/child-poverty-in-the-u-s-is-among-the-worst-in-the-developed-world/

[FailureToCommunicate]

15. Okay, maybe not 'everyone'...

[JimDandy]

18. The NPS's own site acknowledges it.

Interestingly, one of the first surveys on NP fees revealed that, while poor people used the parks significantly less than more well-off people they were all for the higher user fees. Sort of a "since we can't afford the parks at least make the rich pay high user fees so our taxes don't go up to subsidize the parks for their use" mentality.

[alarimer]

2. This is what happens when you starve the budgets of federal agencies.

I prefer national parks to military anything.

[yeoman6987]

4. I am getting ready to finally visit

The Grand Canyon. I thought it was free to get in. Well I am still going and glad to have the heads up on the cost. Military is fine. War is not.

[FailureToCommunicate]

10. You really MUST go! The increase is nothing. $15 to see the most spectacular thing on planet Earth?

It's worth it. Folks spend that much to buy a crappy pizza.



(And believe it or not, NO photos do it justice)

[hopemountain]

12. it is beautiful. friends and i backpacked down

the tanner trail in june of '73 with special permission from the park service. an unforgettable experience.

[JimDandy]

19. The fees are significant and I suggest everyone oppose the proposed increase.

When our car load went to the Arizona side of the canyon, we were expecting to pay a $25 entrance for our car load of five. Instead, the park was closed to private vehicles. Access was by bus only at a cost of $12/person ($60!!! for our family) and if I recall correctly, we would have also had to pay to park our car outside the park. There were also user fees up to kazoo (for example camp site fees, etc).

That is not the cost of pizza. We could not afford it and turned around after having wasted the gas to get there from the highway.

[LuckyLib]

3. But we have money for military equipment that

the military doesn't even want

[Zorro]

5. If you're over 62 get a lifetime senior pass for $10

http://store.usgs.gov/pass/senior.html

[riversedge]

9. thanks for this. Much appreciated.

[pamela]

17. My husband just got his pass in July.

I was happier about his birthday this year than he was. We're fulltime RVers and we've used the pass a bunch already, mainly for half off camping fees at Corps of Engineer parks. Those parks are 10 times prettier than private RV parks at about 1/4th of the price.

[NBachers]

20. I love my Senior Pass! And it covers my entire carload! Everybody gets in for free!

The park staff is always real welcoming when I flash it. I just used it in Muir Woods a few weeks back.

I've used it in state parks, and they often give me a discount there, too!

[newthinking]

24. Maybe it is time to change that. I wish the system was cheaper for everyone, but since it is

done this way it really is quite unfair to single out one group of people and have such a dramatically different approach.

Say maybe, the senior pass is no longer multi year. $10 a year is still incredibly discounted and cheap for almost all. And that pass includes not one but all parks.

[jtuck004]

6. Fire the top 10 people at the Park Service. Use that money. Tell the ones

who are left that it is their mission to make sure that park is open to every American, since it belongs to them. They have 90 days, and then you will turn it over to the city park employees in Flagstaff. Bet they figure something out.

Maybe they could run a kickstarter campaign. They only get about $18 mill or so from entrance fees. Heck, we set aside $1.35 trillion for banksters who screwed the country, seems we could come up with $20 mill or so and let everyone into OUR parks without charging them AGAIN. (They already own it by being a citizen).

Visitors won't then be able to go back home and show funny movies and laugh at us for charging ourselves to get into our own property. "No, really, they do. I saw it with my own eyes".

Heck, maybe one of the banksters we made rich would...no, silly thought.

Get rid of the entrance fee and the sign. Makes it look like a taco stand. It is The People's property.

Find another way.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

7. I don't think $30 for a carload of passengers is exorbitant

Most of us don't live around the Grand Canyon and will spend a lot more money getting there. I never saw the Grand Canyon when I was growing up because we were too poor to make the trip - an entrance fee would have been the least of our concerns.

Frankly, I'm more concerned about he Republicans selling away our national treasures.

[C Moon]

8. If it gets too costly, I'll just sneak in...

...by crawling on oil the pipelines that will be probably be installed in the upcoming 2 years.

[DeSwiss]

13. Sure, what's a few more bucks in the kitty, eh?

- Put it on the card my good man......



K&R

[Xolodno]

16. Way over due in my opinion.

Some of the lines to get in like Yosemite are way too long and the traffic is enormous....meanwhile, things get closed due to lack of funds, less park employee's for greater crowds, etc.

Entrance fee's aren't that abhorrent anyway. Pay once....get the whole week (I just purchase the annual all parks pass). People who complain it higher fee's hurt the less fortunate.....if there are such people...they probably can't afford to get there....let alone afford to stay overnight.

[Turbineguy]

21. Expensive now?

Wait until the GOP sells the National Parks to the Chinese government to cover the money they borrowed to pay for the cost of killing people.

[packman]

22. I have a solution

Dam the Grand Canyon, sell the electricity-it pays for the park and we get a hell of a lake to boat on. Then start drilling and fracking on all those other park lands, make them pay for their existance.

And with our new Congress, this may be a reality.

[Nye Bevan]

23. A family of four spends $212 on average to go to a Major League baseball game.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/consumer/2014/07/12/cost-attend-majorleague-baseball-game/12578975/

So I'm not sure that paying $30 for a week for a carload of people is horribly outrageous.