Grand Canyon, Arizona

Photo credit: PhotoDisc

The new millennium finds Grand Canyon National Park considering an ambitious plan for altering the park. This plan, known as the General Management Plan, dates to the mid-'90s, the tail-end of a 2-decade period during which park visitation more than doubled to 4.6 million. By the mid-'90s, the park's resources were badly strained. On a typical summer day, some 6,500 vehicles drove to the South Rim, only to find 2,400 parking places. Faced with gridlock, noise, and pollution from emissions during high season, the park planned major changes, designed to accommodate the 6.8 million annual visitors that the park, at that time, expected to receive in 2010. However, a 10% decline in the number of tourists to the park since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has left implementation of the General Management Plan uncertain.

Under the plan, private vehicles would eventually be barred from most areas along the South Rim, including the historic district in Grand Canyon Village, Hermits Rest Route, and all but one overlook (Desert View) on the Desert View Drive. Instead of driving, visitors would travel by light rail from a new transportation staging area in Tusayan (just south of the park's south entrance) to a larger orientation center -- the Canyon View Information Plaza -- inside the park near Mather Point. A second light rail line would link the Canyon View Information Plaza with the Village Transit Center in Grand Canyon Village. At both the Canyon View Plaza and the Village Transit Center, visitors would be able to board shuttles that would transport them to other developed areas on the South Rim.

Private cars would not be banned altogether from this part of the park. Visitors camping or staying in lodges and campgrounds ctix from the rim would be allowed to drive directly to those areas. Those staying nearer the rim would be driven by van from parking areas farther out. Visitors would also be able to drive through the park on Highway 64, a through-road connecting the towns of Williams and Cameron, Arizona. However, they would not be allowed to park at the overlooks west of Desert View.

The plan also calls for an extensive "greenway" trail for cyclists (rental bicycles will eventually be available), walkers, and equestrians. Paved in places, it would cover 38 miles on the South Rim between Hermits Rest and Desert View. Another 8-mile branch of the greenway would link Tusayan with the Canyon View Information Plaza. An additional 28 miles may eventually be constructed on the North Rim.

In time, the new transit and trails system should help the National Park Service achieve its goal of restoring the rim areas to a quieter, less polluted state. Other parts of the General Management Plan move commercial activity and housing ctix from the rim and, in some cases, out of the park. For starters, the rim-side Kachina and Thunderbird lodges would be razed; the area they occupy would become open space. Their guest rooms may be replaced by new ones ctix from the rim at Maswik Lodge and in historic buildings that now serve as employee dormitories. Visitors hoping to learn in depth about the park would be able to do so in a cluster of historic buildings in Grand Canyon Village known as the Heritage Education Campus.

Implementing the General Management Plan has proved even more challenging than expected. The park has been able to pay for some of the changes itself, using a percentage of the fees charged for admission and other park usage. But the most ambitious elements, including light rail service, require appropriations from Congress. The light rail plan alone would cost nearly as much as the entire construction budget for the Park Service.

Congress may have lost an impetus for funding major improvements when visitation to Grand Canyon leveled off in the late 1990s and declined after September 11, 2001. In Fall 2001, the National Park Service gave Congress a report on bus alternatives that might serve as a less-expensive substitute for light rail, but two years later no decision to move forward had been made.

In the meantime, the park has slowly moved forward with other elements of the General Management Plan. One major piece, the visually stunning Canyon View Information Plaza, opened in October 2000. A 2.1-mile stretch of greenway between Yavapai and Mather points has been completed.

At present, visitors can ride the park's existing shuttle bus system around Grand Canyon Village, to all overlooks on Hermits Rest Route, and to Mather, Yaki, and Yavapai overlooks. Yet automobiles still strongly affect the visitor experience in most of the park's developed areas, at least in peak season. As long as most people still drive into the park, the Canyon View Information Plaza, which was designed as a mass transit center and lacks automobile parking, will look strangely out of place.