Office of the Secretary

For Immediate Release: November 1, 1999

Contact: John Wright 202/208-6416
Carol Anthony 202/208-6843

Babbitt Announces Test Project, Shifts Transportation
Options for National Parks into Overdrive
Acadia National Park selected as test site for Intelligent Transportation Systems

PHILADELPHIA --On behalf of the Clinton Administration, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt today revealed plans for the National Park Service (NPS) to test a new Department of Transportation Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The test project is designed to provide choices and transportation options while improving safety, access and mobility in the National Parks. The project is part of a partnership agreement between the Interior Department and the Department of Transportation.

"Our Parks don't have too many people," said Babbitt. "But they can, and often do, have too many cars. There is almost a tyranny of the automobile, where the honking, fumes and hectic search for parking actually limits and inhibits our experience of nature. Two years ago, we sought a better way. Today I'm proud to announce that we've found it."

The announcement comes two years after President Clinton directed Babbitt and Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater to develop transportation alternatives that would reduce traffic gridlock, noise, congestion, pollution and parking shortages in the National Parks. Acadia National Park, the eighth most visited park in the U.S., was among the first to demonstrate a new alternate transportation system for its visitors and obtained results that led to its selection to serve as the site for the first national park ITS test project.

"Acadia is a microcosm for what's happening everywhere," Babbitt told an audience of about 200 people gathered today in Philadelphia for the first of four regional training conferences focusing on new approaches to transportation. The conferences are scheduled at different locations around the country to deal with new ideas and solutions to transportation challenges in and around national parks. The sessions are sponsored by the Interior Department and the U.S. Department of Transportation for park, recreation and transportation officials. "From Yosemite to Yellowstone, to the Grand Canyon and Zion, the Park Service is looking at emerging technology to help fulfill our 83-year-old mandate to provide public access to, and preserve unimpaired, our greatest natural resources."

Another focus of the training conference is to give park managers the tools to participate actively in regional transportation planning decisions. Many of the most serious threats to park resources today come from development and sprawl outside of park boundaries. Regional transportation decisions are the single most important factor in subsequent development patterns. It is essential that federal land management officials understand how to be a part of the regional transportation process that effect the lands that they are entrusted to preserve.

The ITS test project at Acadia will center around a U.S. Department of Transportation Advanced Traveler Information System, designed to give travelers real-time information on parking availability, bus arrival and departure times, weather information and other pertinent and visitors related information. The ITS uses communications, computer and sensor technology to improve surface transportation efficiency and safety. The project may also include traveler information such as availability of accommodations and notices of park events. Final design of ITS is scheduled to be completed by early spring of 2000, and is expected to be in use by early summer.

"President Clinton and Vice President Gore are committed to putting people first and protecting the environment," Secretary Slater commented. "Improving safety, mobility and access in our National Parks will benefit visitors and at the same time help protect the fragile ecosystems in the parks, which are among our nation's most precious resources."

Under the test project Acadia National Park will receive $2 million to expand on an ongoing alternate transportation program which began in June 1999, and has already reduced 2 tons of nitrous oxide, 4 tons of hydrocarbons, 32 tons of carbon monoxide, and approximately 522 tons of carbon dioxide - the emissions reductions are equivalent to shutting down a small manufacturing plant for a year. It slashed 1.3 million vehicle miles from the park's roads, reducing wear and tear, congestion and sometimes dangerous competition for parking spaces. The NPS hopes that the ITS will encourage even more visitors to use mass transit, instead of automobiles when they visit the park.

"We are serious about protecting park resources, improving the park experience for our visitors and providing choices for moving in and around the parks," said National Park Service Director Robert Stanton. "We provide the welcome mat; our visitors can decide how to cross it."

Acadia National Park comprises 35,000 acres, primarily on Mount Desert Island, on the east coast of Maine. Nearly two million people visited the park during the summer of 1997, and in July and August, Acadia's visitors exceeded those toYosemite National Park. It is estimated that between 1995 and 2020, visitation to Acadia National Park is projected to double, from 3 million to 6 million visitors.

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