If you were responsible for managing a national park such as Yellowstone, would you support or oppose road?

Question

building plans to provide more people with access to the backcountry?

Answer 1

support

Answer 2

My taxes were spent for the parks and it should be open to all for a small price.

Answer 3

burn more tires in Yellowstone park!

Answer 4

In order to not ruin Yellowstone more...no more roads of any kind should be built. Only the maintenance of the ones that already exist. If you build roadways for more access to the back country...the beauty and sense of adventure will be lost.

Answer 5

I would oppose building more roads into the back country. But I would support keeping the EXISTING roads. Some people want to close existing roads. That is going too far.

Answer 6

The trouble with wilderness access for *all* is, that it is no longer wilderness BY DEFINITION, when you allow access to anyone, by any means.

No roads into the wilderness -- that's my opinion.

I have backpacked and hiked true wilderness.  I want to keep it (the wilderness) that way (wild).

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Answer 7

no roads

Answer 8

oppose

Answer 9

It is public land for public use. While I don't think wholesale paving of Yellowstone, I've been to Yellowstone, and traffic for most part is fairly reasonable. Some j*ck*sses want to close the park to any traffic. (kind of defeats the purpose to me).

there is a group call y2y that is pushing for a hands off area from Yellowstone to the Yukon, I believe these people ought to be taken out back of the cob shanty and beaten.

I believe that Yellowstone and other parks require maintenance and upgrades, and yes, perhaps opening a 'few' trails currently only being used by a very select few for motorized access.

I don't believe roads should be considered other then keeping up the maintenance and repairs on those that exist, perhaps increasing the width to three lanes in some locations when you get bozos stopping to feed the bears (and hopefully eaten out of the gene pool.).  So travelers can pass.

Backcountry should remain backcountry. The FS has maintenance roads in Yellowstone to some areas but they are closed to keep idiots from driving back into locations and s******g the pooch.

check our plp2.org, we advocate for open access to Public Lands for public use. It is a never ending fight against the ecowhacks who think we ought to live in the stone age.

Answer 10

This is a really good question and for many years now I've been involved in similar debates regarding access to National Parks and AONB's (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) in the UK.

It's a no win situation, whatever you did you'd please some people and upset others.  You need to balance the wishes of people to visit backcountry areas with the need to conserve them - but these are opposing principles.  You either have to draw a line somewhere or come up with an alternative solution.

In terms of drawing a line it seems, in the UK at least, that leaving things as they are is the favoured option.  By comparison with the US the UK is very accessible with even the remotest parts being no more than a few hours trek from the road.  For some this is still too much and there are people who would like to see easier vehicular access.  I suspect if Yellowstone or any other National Park were to build more access roads then, in time, people would come to accept them and demand even easier access until eventually there was a freeway to the top of every mountain, around every lake and through the middle of every woodland area.

An alternative appraoch is to 'sacrifice' some areas in favour of preserving others.  Set aside part of the National Park and provide easy vehicular access, shops, tourist facilities, restaurants, hotels etc and so cater for those who want to explore by car.  At the same time preserve the remaining areas so they are the domain of those who don't mind trekking for several days to reach them.  This 'honeypot' principle works well in several European countries.

Alternatively, if access is made easier, then close the Park to all but 'authorised' persons for several months of the year to allow it time to recover.

It would be a shame if the US were to become like the UK where there's no wilderness areas left.  Look on a map and you'll find plenty of areas called 'forest' such as Fisherfield and Dundonnel Forests but go there and there's not a tree in sight - what you will see are roads, dams, hydro electric power staions, electricity lines etc.  These encroachments have come bit by bit - build a dirt road, extract a few trees, tarmac the road, take out a few more trees, build a small dam, enlarge it...  Once you start opening up an area to tourists and development it's very easy to keep going until there's nothing left.

What would I do? Probably go for the 'honeypot' approach.  Sure, some of the Park will be lost but the remainder will be preserved.