Visalia to Begin Shuttle to Park: Service to and Within Sequoia National Park Caps a 3-Year Effort.
By Tim Sheehan, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Mar. 22–After nearly three years of negotiations and budget delays, a free shuttle service among major attractions in Sequoia National Park will begin this summer.
Visalia officials and National Park Service representatives have agreed on a half-million-dollar contract for the city to provide the shuttle service in the park’s Giant Forest. Visalia City Council members approved the contract this week.
City Council Member Bob Link, who was Visalia’s mayor when negotiations between the city and the park began in mid-2004, said he’s eager for the program to get rolling.
“It is finally going to get off the ground,” he said. “We’re supposed to start moving people on May 23.”
Starting then and continuing through Sept. 3 — the park’s peak summer season from Memorial Day through Labor Day — shuttles will depart every 15 minutes from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from the Giant Forest Museum on two routes:
Route 1 includes stops at the General Sherman Tree, the Lodgepole Village and Wuksachi> Village.
Route 2 stops include Moro> Rock and Crescent Meadow.
The Park Service will pay Visalia $509,180 to operate the shuttles for the season. Visalia will supply a fleet of eight vehicles: five 35-foot transit-style buses for Route 1, and three smaller 16-passenger buses, akin to Visalia’s dial-a-ride vans, for the narrower Route 2 road.
“We’re very excited about having a shuttle system in Sequoia National Park,” said Alexandra Picavet>, a park spokeswoman. “It will afford visitors an opportunity to see key areas of the park and not have to worry about parking.”
The shuttle is the last major piece of an eight-year effort to restore the Giant Forest — home to many of the largest giant sequoia trees in the world. With their shallow root systems, giant sequoias are sensitive to development in groves.
Picavet said shuttles will reduce hazards for motorists unfamiliar with the narrow, winding roads in the Giant Forest: “People can just leave the driving to someone else and just enjoy their time in the park.”
Besides reducing congestion on park roads and parking lots, the shuttles hold environmental benefits, too.
“Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have been recognized as two parks with some of the worst air quality in the national park system” Picavet said. “Every step we can take to alleviate some of the traffic that adds to that is worthwhile.”
The Park Service will provide training for shuttle drivers to answer basic questions about the park’s history, resources and services; an administrative office, bus parking and maintenance bays at Lodgepole; and more than 24,000 gallons of diesel and 5,200 gallons of gasoline for the shuttles.
The Giant Forest shuttles also pave the way for Visalia to start its own “gateway” buses from the city to the park, also starting on May 23.
Monty Cox, Visalia’s transit manager, said the city’s service will operate during the same peak season.
Five departures will be offered each day starting at 7 a.m. for the 60-mile, two-hour trip on the winding Generals Highway to Giant Forest. The gateway buses will link up with the in-park shuttles at the Giant Forest Museum.
Depending on whether the Park Service charges an entry fee to Visalia’s shuttles, Cox said, the gateway fares are expected to be between $10 and $15 per person.
Visalia hopes the gateway shuttle will make the city a jumping-off point for tourists visiting the park.
“I would anticipate we’ll get people staying overnight here and using the buses to visit the park,” Link said.
But, Link added, the city had to wait for the Park Service to secure money and approve an internal shuttle program.
“For us to take people to the park, but not have a means for them to get around inside the park, didn’t make any sense,” Link said.
Cox said the gateway service will use the same type of smaller, 16-passenger bus used for the Moro Rock/Crescent Meadow park route.
“That was driven by federal highway standards and limits on the size of vehicle we can use getting up the hill,” Cox said.
The reporter can be reached at tsheehan@fresnobee.com or (559) 622-2410.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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