[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 14038-14039]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            TRANSPORTATION CRUNCH TIME IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. NICK J. RAHALL II

                            of west virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 5, 2003

  Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, with nearly 300 million visitors to our 
National Park System each year, there are times when the roads in 
America's Crown Jewels look little different than the scene on I-395 
into the District of Columbia during morning rush hour. The level of 
traffic congestion being experienced in many of our National Parks not 
only diminishes the visitor experience, but is adversely impacting the 
resource values these parks were established to protect in the first 
place.
  While the automobile will continue to reign supreme, our National 
Parks and the people who visit them are suffering from a lack of 
alternative transportation opportunities. To address this situation, 
today I am introducing the Transit in Parks Act (TRIP).
  Recognizing the growing problems many of America's `crown jewels' are 
experiencing as a result of high visitation levels, Congress in the 
last major federal highway and transit reauthorization law known as TEA 
21 required the Secretaries of Transportation and Interior to undertake 
a study of alternative transportation needs in National Parks. The 
study found a pressing need to increase transit opportunities in order 
to relieve traffic congestion, enhance visitor accessibility, preserve 
sensitive resources and reduce pollution. However, it identified a 
number of barriers to implementing successful transit systems in 
National Parks, including the lack of a dedicated funding source.
  The TRIP bill carries out the study findings by establishing a 
Transit in Parks Program to be administered by the Secretary of 
Transportation (Federal Transit Administration) and the Secretary of 
the Interior (National Park Service). The program would generally 
follow existing law requirements for mass transportation as it relates 
to the planning and development of transit facilities and would create 
a transit counterpart to the Federal Highway Administration's Parkways 
and Park Roads program. The legislation proposes a $90 million annual 
allocation for the Transit in Parks Program from the Mass Transit 
Account of the Highway Trust Fund.
  It should be noted that the National Park Service is currently using 
on average $11 million of its $165 million annual Parkways and Park 
Roads allocation for alternative transportation. This amount is 
insufficient to meet the alternative transportation needs for units of 
the National Park System identified by the TEA 21 study of 
approximately $90 million a year. Moreover, as the study noted, this 
shift in funding increases the gap between available funding and the 
amount needed to maintain the rapidly deteriorating and already 
underfunded park roadway system.
  Currently, we are squandering some of our most unique natural 
resource heritage contained in units of the National Park System as a 
result of a relatively small investment in alternative transportation 
facilities. It is my hope that the funding in this bill will be 
additive to

[[Page 14039]]

the extensively documented but unmet rural and urban transit funding 
needs which must be addressed in the TEA 21 reauthorization.

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