The People and the Park: Reactions to a System of Public Transportation in Mt. McKinley National Park, Alaska

Abstract

In 1972 the National Park Service greatly restricted the use of private automobiles in Mt. McKinley National Park, Alaska. As a substitute for private transportation, the Park Service offered free bus service for visitors. Also for the first time in 1972, the Park Service required that visitors have advance reservations for campsites in the five campgrounds located well inside the Park. To help evaluate the impact of these new regulations, the Park Service contracted with the Institute of Social, Economic and Government Research of the University of Alaska to conduct a study of public reaction to them. Opinions of park visitors were surveyed during the summer months of 1972 (Phase I), and the opinions of Alaska residents were surveyed during the winter of 1973 (Phase II). Phase I of the study revealed that the vast majority of people who visited the Park approved of the new transportation policy. Eighty- four percent of the 1,094 people who responded to the key question regarding the policy indicated their approval. The same percentage thought that the shuttle bus service was good. Seventy percent of the sample of people with campground reversations approved of the new reservation requirement. Phase II of the study indicated that 55 percent of the 459 individuals returning questionnaires after the first mailing who knew about the new transportation policy approved it; 35 percent disapproved. However, of the much smaller number of informed people who returned quesionnaires after the second mailing (37 total) 44 percent approved and 49 percent disapproved, which suggests that the resident population of Alaskans in Anchorage and Fairbanks may divide nearly 50/50 on their opinion of the new policy.