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The idea of running commercial services inside a national park seems to me to be ridiculous as a concept. The idea that a strip mall with grocery stores, hotel

The idea of running commercial services inside a national park seems to me to be ridiculous as a concept. The idea that a strip mall with grocery stores, hotels, and gas stations (and yes they have that in Yellowstone) is "national park" land makes the concept of a national park ridiculous. Why not just take the areas inside national parks that are currently commercially developed, remove them from the park, and sell them off to private owners. Now there can just be a law that you can't build a damn thing on national park land, and then private companies can run commercial services on non-park land and there won't be this conflict of interest.

ip26 1y ago
It shouldn't be built up like an amusement park, but some level of services seems reasonable. Water, bathrooms, gas for large/remote parks. If you're advocating even all of that should be removed as well, then we're really talking about converting national parks to wilderness areas.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Bathrooms and water fountains aren't commercial facilities, so that's not what I was talking about removing. As for gas stations, I see no reason why visitors can't fill up before they enter the park. While the point I am addressing here is only about the issue of commercial development I wouldn't have any problem converting them to pure wilderness areas. The entire concept of having a national park be a wilderness area that has little islands of crowded commercial areas with heavy traffic in the middle just seems strange to me and defeats the purpose.
  - throwaway173738 1y ago
    If you drive the ring road in Yellowstone in its entirety you could find yourself running out of gas without taking at least one long detour into a town. That park is huge. I don’t think having some amenities is a bad thing. Honestly the biggest problem is not their presence in places like Yellowstone or Grand Teton or Olympic or Mount Rainier it’s how poorly some of them are maintained and the sheer quantity of tourists especially in places like Yellowstone which is a UN World Heritage site. At almost every lodge I’ve stayed in in those parks they’ve been dirty and very expensive.
  - jhbadger 1y ago
    As noted, the park is huge. It's worth re-emphasizing how huge -- it's larger than several smaller European countries including Luxembourg -- over 3000 km^2. Expecting that people don't need gas in this vast area is absurd.

ip26 1y ago

It shouldn't be built up like an amusement park, but some level of services seems reasonable. Water, bathrooms, gas for large/remote parks. If you're advocating even all of that should be removed as well, then we're really talking about converting national parks to wilderness areas.

terminalshort 1y ago
Bathrooms and water fountains aren't commercial facilities, so that's not what I was talking about removing. As for gas stations, I see no reason why visitors can't fill up before they enter the park. While the point I am addressing here is only about the issue of commercial development I wouldn't have any problem converting them to pure wilderness areas. The entire concept of having a national park be a wilderness area that has little islands of crowded commercial areas with heavy traffic in the middle just seems strange to me and defeats the purpose.
- throwaway173738 1y ago
  If you drive the ring road in Yellowstone in its entirety you could find yourself running out of gas without taking at least one long detour into a town. That park is huge. I don’t think having some amenities is a bad thing. Honestly the biggest problem is not their presence in places like Yellowstone or Grand Teton or Olympic or Mount Rainier it’s how poorly some of them are maintained and the sheer quantity of tourists especially in places like Yellowstone which is a UN World Heritage site. At almost every lodge I’ve stayed in in those parks they’ve been dirty and very expensive.
- jhbadger 1y ago
  As noted, the park is huge. It's worth re-emphasizing how huge -- it's larger than several smaller European countries including Luxembourg -- over 3000 km^2. Expecting that people don't need gas in this vast area is absurd.