Bus Service in Grand Teton and Yellowstone is Long Overdue

By Michael Pearlman

Published: July 04, 2009

Bus Service in Grand Teton and Yellowstone is Long Overdue

By Michael Pearlman, 7-04-09

During my freshman year of college at USC in Los Angeles, I had a view of the famous Hollywood sign from my dorm room window. In addition to serving as a vivid reminder of the dominant industry of Southern California, the sign also served as a handy air quality indicator. Though located a mere eight miles away on Mount Lee in Griffith Park, the Hollywood sign was invisible on many days, sheathed in the blanket of smog that LA residents deal with on a daily basis.

I eventually left Los Angeles with its car culture and air quality issues for the Northern Rockies, where Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks beckoned me during the summer season. A visit to Jackson Hole during peak summer tourist season makes one instantly aware that the parks are capable of transforming into virtual cities, complete with traffic and other congestion-related issues.

Locals learn to develop strategies to try and avoid the worst of the crowds, but most of my friends and I avoid Yellowstone like the plague during July and August. Not because the trails are crowded, but simply because of the nightmare-inducing traffic congestion comprised of thousands of families motoring from parking lot to parking lot. Throw in a short construction season to address crumbling roads, and your August visit to Old Faithful will likely involve more hours in the car than among geysers. In Grand Teton National Park, attempting to visit popular spots like Jenny Lake or the Rockefeller Preserve in the middle of the day will leave you circling a parking lot like a shopper hitting the mall on Black Friday.

When I read an article in the Seattle Times recently about a new park service program called Climate Friendly Parks that intends to address climate change, my mind immediately went to the issue of reducing vehicle traffic and emissions in the parks. The National Park Service describes the program as: 

“A collaboration of the National Park Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, provides national parks with management tools and resources to address climate change. The program aims to provide national parks with comprehensive support to address climate change both within park boundaries and the surrounding community.”

Sounds good to me. The program goes on to spell out how a park can earn Climate Friendly recognition by demonstrating measurable progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Wouldn’t you know it, Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks aren’t among the member parks in the program yet.

Car culture is the double-edged sword of the National Park experience. Roads inside our parks make it easy for the elderly, the disabled and families with small children to get a taste of the grandeur and beauty of these places. But for the sake of air quality and the visitor experience, there should be another way to experience these two parks. Bus service is long overdue in both places and it’s time to look at places where private vehicles should be banned for part of the year, at least. It’s the only realistic way to get visitors out of their cars in Grand Teton and Yellowstone.

We already know that bus service can be effectively utilized within the park system. Zion National Park uses propane-powered buses to shuttle visitors from the nearby town of Springfield due to a severe parking shortage, helping to reduce resource damage. Yosemite National Park which receives hoards of weekend crowds from the nearby cities of northern California, also has a shuttle system within its boundaries. At Denali National Park, visitors can only drive 15 miles into the park and are required to take the bus the rest of the way along the 92-mile park road. These systems work well and have become the accepted mode of travel for visitors.

The public could also adapt to using public transportation in the Greater Yellowstone area during peak season, if it was offered. I’m not talking about traditional diesel-spewing school buses. I envision both parks embracing alternative fuel sources and green technology. Perhaps plug-in electric vehicles could be used, or the Park Service could work with emerging technology companies to showcase clean options.

In Grand Teton National Park, a summer season bus service could run from the town of Jackson to the Moose entrance station to the northern end of the park. The bus could stop at popular trailheads and tourists should be given an incentive for leaving their their cars at the campground or motel or even the visitor center. If Grand Teton’s inner park road from Moose to Jenny Lake were closed during peak season, I guarantee people staying in Jackson would be willing bus riders. At the very least, the narrow and scenic Jenny Lake Loop should be closed to private vehicle traffic.

In Yellowstone, buses could leave from West Yellowstone and make a loop following the interior roads of the park, allowing people staying in West Yellowstone motels, Old Faithful Inn and Yellowstone Lake Lodge to get out of their cars and take a bus to Old Faithful and the Upper Falls. In fact, I’d go further and completely ban private vehicles from Dunraven Pass, allowing only the bus service. You’d likely see a reduction in wildlife harassment within Yellowstone as well.

Bus service in both parks could be operated by an outside concessionaire, but ideally, the cost of the bus ride would be included in park entrance fee. Even if there’s a small charge to passengers, there should be a strong incentive to use the service that should include access to areas where private vehicles are not allowed.

Getting these two parks to embrace mass transportation is going to require changes in management policy and would require additional funding that the Park Service doesn’t appear to have right now. But if there’s one federal agency that should be the poster child for forward-thinking conservation and greenhouse gas reduction efforts it’s the National Park Service. In Glacier National Park, the effects of climate change are already visible in the rapid recession of glaciers. If the government isn’t willing to take aggressive action within the boundaries of the country’s most well-protected treasures, then what chance does air quality improvement have in places like Los Angeles, where the battle seems already to have been lost?

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