4 ms·

It'd be wonderful if we just made it free for everyone - it's not like the dues that parks collect come even close to covering their maintenance. Make it free,

by munk-a 3y ago

It'd be wonderful if we just made it free for everyone - it's not like the dues that parks collect come even close to covering their maintenance. Make it free, increase their budget by like 5% and you won't even need to worry about purchasing expensive PoS terminals that will work three hundred miles from the nearest cell towers.

mberning 3y ago
Completely agree. When I went to Yosemite the POS was down and they just opened the gate. The resources needed to run the admission system could be better spent elsewhere.
georgeg23 3y ago
There'd probably be people effectively living in the park in their RV if entrance was free. The entrance requirements also help enforce that rangers inform visitors about dangers, closures etc.. upon arrival.
- carabiner 3y ago
  Park entrance costs $80 per year. You think that's stopping RVers?
- munk-a 3y ago
  Why have we put RVers in such a terrible place that living in a national park with no hookups for your home is a preferable choice? Couldn't we solve that problem by just providing reasonable housing subsidies to people who need them? And if that decision would be so preferable then what does it say about the standards of living of those people today?
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    I think that there's a pretty sizable chunk of the population who would genuinely prefer living in a national park.
    - munk-a 3y ago
      Do you mean they'd prefer to be in nature? Because we've got Idaho. There's an awful lot of Idaho... and if we run out there's more than enough Alaska.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Some huge percentage of the USA is BLM land which is basically entirely free to do whatever you want as long as you don’t build permanent structures and move every 30? days or similar. If you’re quiet and out of the way, I dare say you could live on BLM land permanently and nobody would know, let alone care. And some BLM land is really impressive.
        pests 3y ago
        Ive researched this for when I was staying in the Manistee National Park in Michigan. Must "leave the park" every two weeks for at least a day. So moving from site to site wasn't technically legal. Couldn't camp too close to trails or to rivers.
        mcmoor 3y ago
        Is there modern nomadic community out there? Sounds interesting to hear how they live.
        rurp 3y ago
        Yep, this is very doable and plenty of folks do live on public land for long stretches of time. Just be clean and don't mess things up and it's totally fine. Most national forest land also allows camping in disturbed areas. This mostly applies to the west coast though. The eastern US has very little public land that is freely accessible.
        jandrewrogers 3y ago
        Technically you have to move your site every 14 days on BLM land, though to your point that is not going to be enforced in some regions of the Mountain West. In some remote areas of Alaska, including the islands of the Inside Passage, there are small, informal off-the-grid permanent settlements on government land. If they aren’t causing trouble such that someone complains then it isn’t worth the government’s time to care. In the wild parts of the US, even the government tends to adopt the “live and let live” ethos of that type of country.
  - Aurornis 3y ago
    I think you’re reading too much into this. If someone is homeless, parking in a high-traffic national park that is patrolled by rangers and has limits on how long you can stay isn’t going to happen. An annual park pass isn’t that expensive. People who live in an RV would spend far, far more driving to and from the park for various things they need (gas, supplies) than they’d save on the park pass. Regardless, having a pass doesn’t eliminate the rules regarding duration of stay. You can’t live in a national park even if you have a pass. If you try to do it in an RV, you’d get noticed and cited.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    This story has the inevitable tie-in to a big evil Tech corporation: https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/ https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic...
macNchz 3y ago
I agree in principle, though one counterpoint might be that recreation is an easy target for congress when looking for budgets to cut, so having some of the budget come through fees from users can provide some degree of insulation from political whims.
chrisco255 3y ago
Many of the national parks and forests are free. Sometimes even the camp sites are free. It's usually the smaller ones or the high traffic ones that require more staffing to maintain or have historic sites that need to be upkept.
- StillBored 3y ago
  I'm really trying to remember a national park that was "free". There are various small parks/historic sites which are free largely because its a statue/gravesite/etc but I can't remember one of the actual parks having free entrance in quite a white. There are a number which don't have gated entrances, but they still have honor system signs to the effect that you need to put money in the drop box. The national forests OTOH, yes they are largely still free, but they are also heavily managed, frequently with commercial interests (ex, ski resorts at the top of the mountain, logging rights, etc). Which has resulted in the push to reclassify a number of them as wilderness, which has its own issues if you happen to be anyone but a birdwatcher (ex hunter, fisher, mountain biker, trail maintainer).
  - vtbassmatt 3y ago
    Great Smoky Mountains National Park is still free to access. (Though it looks like they added parking passes at $5/day starting in March.)
    - StillBored 3y ago
      I think I had this conversation not long ago too. I used to frequent smokey mountains a lot in the 1990's. Even then there were fee lots but plenty of ways to bypass them, which I as a starving college student was pretty good at. OTOH, they don't really have a fee because a couple of major roads that are hard to avoid run right through the middle of the park. So, to me the recent moves sound more like they are closing all the loopholes around avoiding the parking fees (ex parking on the road rather than in the lot) which were there to replace the entrance fees.
  - jairuhme 3y ago
caterama 3y ago
I used to think the same thing about public transport -- make it completely free! However, after a couple of local experiments in making it completely free, I've changed my mind. It should cost _something small_ in order to 1) prevent abuse but also 2) enforce a psychological valuation of the service.
- bombcar 3y ago
  This is basically the paradoxical case - we should raise the price of these various public services but then enable various and sundry loopholes that let people access them for free. Then they think they’re pulling a fast one and would utilize it.
- dudul 3y ago
  How does one abuse public transportation? The bus is gonna go from point A to B no matter what. Does it matter if i want to go back and forth all day long? Surely there won't be enough people wasting their time like me to fill up the bus and make it unusable for others.
  - laverya 3y ago
    "Back and forth all day long while doing drugs" is literally one of the failure cases. "Back and forth begging/busking" is another.
    - munk-a 3y ago
      That's a misuse of service - it's better to solve that with law enforcement than pricing.
    - dudul 3y ago
      What a weird argument. First of all, it already happens today. People begging or doing drug just get in the subway and do that. Second, people can also do drug and beg in public parks. Should we add a fee to get into a public park?
goles 3y ago
Unfortunately, I don’t think the objectives of the park service are to maximize the number of visitors anymore. It’s to manage crowds and limit the amount of ecological damage the public does due to the huge number of people wanting to come, esp post-COVID restlessness. I recall seeing an interview with either a state or federal park employee and they used the wonderful euphemism “Disincentive visitation” when discussing timed entry permits. Translation: “Fuck off. But if you do come we’re gonna make your life as hard as possible and that will be 39.99 please (Fees not incl.)”
- asynchronous 3y ago
  Really busts me up that kind of the one thing the US has going for it is such beautiful national parks, and yet we make it so ridiculously difficult to enjoy them.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It’s only difficult to enjoy the most popular ones, in the most popular parts, during the busy season. Going off season or to side entrances finds miles and miles of … nothing.
  - goles 3y ago
    If we’re being honest these restrictions are more of an annoyance for the HN demographic (of which I am very much the part). We’re gonna be fine. They really destroy less fortunate peoples chances to enjoy our beautiful landscapes. If you didn’t plan your summer last February good luck finding a space that isn’t on the weekday. Then you have to plan kids out of school and two jobs and pets and their after school and… You know what fuck it just drink beer and watch the game instead. There will be just as many instagram models with tripods, just not the people who it would mean a lot more to than a picture.
seattle_spring 3y ago
I find it hard to imagine someone who has spent any measurable amount of time at US parks thinking, "you know what this needs? Even more people."

by munk-a 3y ago

mberning 3y ago

Completely agree. When I went to Yosemite the POS was down and they just opened the gate. The resources needed to run the admission system could be better spent elsewhere.

georgeg23 3y ago

There'd probably be people effectively living in the park in their RV if entrance was free. The entrance requirements also help enforce that rangers inform visitors about dangers, closures etc.. upon arrival.

carabiner 3y ago
Park entrance costs $80 per year. You think that's stopping RVers?
munk-a 3y ago
Why have we put RVers in such a terrible place that living in a national park with no hookups for your home is a preferable choice? Couldn't we solve that problem by just providing reasonable housing subsidies to people who need them? And if that decision would be so preferable then what does it say about the standards of living of those people today?
- shepherdjerred 3y ago
  I think that there's a pretty sizable chunk of the population who would genuinely prefer living in a national park.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Do you mean they'd prefer to be in nature? Because we've got Idaho. There's an awful lot of Idaho... and if we run out there's more than enough Alaska.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Some huge percentage of the USA is BLM land which is basically entirely free to do whatever you want as long as you don’t build permanent structures and move every 30? days or similar. If you’re quiet and out of the way, I dare say you could live on BLM land permanently and nobody would know, let alone care. And some BLM land is really impressive.
      - pests 3y ago
        Ive researched this for when I was staying in the Manistee National Park in Michigan. Must "leave the park" every two weeks for at least a day. So moving from site to site wasn't technically legal. Couldn't camp too close to trails or to rivers.
      - mcmoor 3y ago
        Is there modern nomadic community out there? Sounds interesting to hear how they live.
      - rurp 3y ago
        Yep, this is very doable and plenty of folks do live on public land for long stretches of time. Just be clean and don't mess things up and it's totally fine. Most national forest land also allows camping in disturbed areas. This mostly applies to the west coast though. The eastern US has very little public land that is freely accessible.
      - jandrewrogers 3y ago
        Technically you have to move your site every 14 days on BLM land, though to your point that is not going to be enforced in some regions of the Mountain West. In some remote areas of Alaska, including the islands of the Inside Passage, there are small, informal off-the-grid permanent settlements on government land. If they aren’t causing trouble such that someone complains then it isn’t worth the government’s time to care. In the wild parts of the US, even the government tends to adopt the “live and let live” ethos of that type of country.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  I think you’re reading too much into this. If someone is homeless, parking in a high-traffic national park that is patrolled by rangers and has limits on how long you can stay isn’t going to happen. An annual park pass isn’t that expensive. People who live in an RV would spend far, far more driving to and from the park for various things they need (gas, supplies) than they’d save on the park pass. Regardless, having a pass doesn’t eliminate the rules regarding duration of stay. You can’t live in a national park even if you have a pass. If you try to do it in an RV, you’d get noticed and cited.
- RajT88 3y ago
  This story has the inevitable tie-in to a big evil Tech corporation: https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/ https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic...

macNchz 3y ago

I agree in principle, though one counterpoint might be that recreation is an easy target for congress when looking for budgets to cut, so having some of the budget come through fees from users can provide some degree of insulation from political whims.

chrisco255 3y ago

Many of the national parks and forests are free. Sometimes even the camp sites are free. It's usually the smaller ones or the high traffic ones that require more staffing to maintain or have historic sites that need to be upkept.

StillBored 3y ago
I'm really trying to remember a national park that was "free". There are various small parks/historic sites which are free largely because its a statue/gravesite/etc but I can't remember one of the actual parks having free entrance in quite a white. There are a number which don't have gated entrances, but they still have honor system signs to the effect that you need to put money in the drop box. The national forests OTOH, yes they are largely still free, but they are also heavily managed, frequently with commercial interests (ex, ski resorts at the top of the mountain, logging rights, etc). Which has resulted in the push to reclassify a number of them as wilderness, which has its own issues if you happen to be anyone but a birdwatcher (ex hunter, fisher, mountain biker, trail maintainer).
- vtbassmatt 3y ago
  Great Smoky Mountains National Park is still free to access. (Though it looks like they added parking passes at $5/day starting in March.)
  - StillBored 3y ago
    I think I had this conversation not long ago too. I used to frequent smokey mountains a lot in the 1990's. Even then there were fee lots but plenty of ways to bypass them, which I as a starving college student was pretty good at. OTOH, they don't really have a fee because a couple of major roads that are hard to avoid run right through the middle of the park. So, to me the recent moves sound more like they are closing all the loopholes around avoiding the parking fees (ex parking on the road rather than in the lot) which were there to replace the entrance fees.
- jairuhme 3y ago

caterama 3y ago

I used to think the same thing about public transport -- make it completely free! However, after a couple of local experiments in making it completely free, I've changed my mind. It should cost _something small_ in order to 1) prevent abuse but also 2) enforce a psychological valuation of the service.

bombcar 3y ago
This is basically the paradoxical case - we should raise the price of these various public services but then enable various and sundry loopholes that let people access them for free. Then they think they’re pulling a fast one and would utilize it.
dudul 3y ago
How does one abuse public transportation? The bus is gonna go from point A to B no matter what. Does it matter if i want to go back and forth all day long? Surely there won't be enough people wasting their time like me to fill up the bus and make it unusable for others.
- laverya 3y ago
  "Back and forth all day long while doing drugs" is literally one of the failure cases. "Back and forth begging/busking" is another.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    That's a misuse of service - it's better to solve that with law enforcement than pricing.
  - dudul 3y ago
    What a weird argument. First of all, it already happens today. People begging or doing drug just get in the subway and do that. Second, people can also do drug and beg in public parks. Should we add a fee to get into a public park?

goles 3y ago

Unfortunately, I don’t think the objectives of the park service are to maximize the number of visitors anymore. It’s to manage crowds and limit the amount of ecological damage the public does due to the huge number of people wanting to come, esp post-COVID restlessness. I recall seeing an interview with either a state or federal park employee and they used the wonderful euphemism “Disincentive visitation” when discussing timed entry permits. Translation: “Fuck off. But if you do come we’re gonna make your life as hard as possible and that will be 39.99 please (Fees not incl.)”

asynchronous 3y ago
Really busts me up that kind of the one thing the US has going for it is such beautiful national parks, and yet we make it so ridiculously difficult to enjoy them.
- bombcar 3y ago
  It’s only difficult to enjoy the most popular ones, in the most popular parts, during the busy season. Going off season or to side entrances finds miles and miles of … nothing.
- goles 3y ago
  If we’re being honest these restrictions are more of an annoyance for the HN demographic (of which I am very much the part). We’re gonna be fine. They really destroy less fortunate peoples chances to enjoy our beautiful landscapes. If you didn’t plan your summer last February good luck finding a space that isn’t on the weekday. Then you have to plan kids out of school and two jobs and pets and their after school and… You know what fuck it just drink beer and watch the game instead. There will be just as many instagram models with tripods, just not the people who it would mean a lot more to than a picture.

seattle_spring 3y ago

I find it hard to imagine someone who has spent any measurable amount of time at US parks thinking, "you know what this needs? Even more people."