A Blueprint for Beauty

For all the hard knocks it takes--some valid, others not--the federal bureaucracy has produced a triumph for America with its final plan for reshaping California’s Yosemite Valley, the congested and often smoggy core of Yosemite National Park. The National Park Service’s new blueprint will allow millions to better enjoy the magnificent rock-walled valley and its spectacular waterfalls and still have access to essential visitor services.

The plan, released by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in November, will be phased in over the next 10 to 15 years at an estimated cost of $442 million. Many of the natural restoration projects will begin immediately.

The Park Service has battled for more than 20 years to limit the impact of automobile noise, fumes and traffic in the one-by-seven-mile valley, majestically rimmed by El Capitan, Half Dome and other granite towers. But each plan succumbed to competing interest groups deadlocked over proposals that ranged from a total ban on motor vehicles in the valley to no change at all. No one could find a middle ground.

Nature itself helped play the winning hand nearly four years ago when flood waters devastated campgrounds, roads, buildings and natural features in the valley. The disaster provided an unexpected opportunity for change, a chance to restore the valley and to do it right. Congress quickly appropriated restoration funds and, once the emergency work was completed, planning for the future began.

The result was a draft proposal released for public study and comment last March. The Park Service took that good plan and made it better by adopting many of the public’s suggestions. These included expanded hiking and biking trails, more campsites and fewer high-end lodging facilities. One excellent proposal calls for rebuilding Yosemite Lodge to give it a look that will better match its surroundings.

Day-use parking in the valley will be reduced from more than 2,000 spaces to 550. Other day visitors will be required to park outside the valley and tour on shuttle buses. The Merced River flood plain and more than 70 acres of meadow land will be restored to their natural state.

A new visitor center will attract tourists to Yosemite Village, while services for campers and lodgers--such as the grocery store--will be shifted to Curry Village. Park Service and concessionaire offices and housing will be moved out of the valley. Northside Drive between Yosemite Lodge and El Capitan will be converted to hiking and biking only. The goal is to get tourists out of their cars and into the natural beauty and serenity of the valley.

Credit goes both to Park Service planners and members of the public who helped develop and shape the plan. Not everyone will be fully satisfied, but this is a remarkably solid foundation for the future of the valley and the park. This gift of all Americans to future generations deserves the strongest possible commitment of Congress and the new administration.