Transit for national parks and gateway communities: Impacts and guidance

With national parks increasingly threatened by traffic congestion and transportation demand beyond the capacity of existing private vehicle infrastructure, the U.S. National Park Service is starting to explore and implement transportation alternatives, but the impact of these new transportation offerings is not well understood. As the National Park Service advances in its mission to address surface transportation problems in the park system, local communities around parks wonder how changing patterns of visitation will affect them. Examining the effects of transit in parks that recently have introduced transit or have made major changes to existing transit service can offer potential insights on what gateway communities can expect to result from alternative transportation systems.; This research project examined the impacts when transit is introduced or expanded in national parks. The research was designed to: (1) Provide an understanding of what role improvements in transit access to national parks can have on parks and surrounding communities, and (2) Develop a methodology that the U.S. National Park Service can use to estimate the impacts of new transit service for national parks.; The research design involved a review of current literature on the impact of transit on communities and the nature of transportation in park environments, case study examination of several parks and park regions that have introduced new transit service in recent years, and comparison of sites according to case study results and performance measures. A methodology emerged from the identified cases and resulted in recommendations for planning and information-gathering surrounding future implementations of transit.