DCC suggests changes in Final Denali Vehicle Management Plan

(Read our comments at;
DCC Comments on Final Vehicle Management Plan 7-20-12)

When the Final Denali Vehicle Management Plan was released on June 29, 2012, three DCC board members read and analyzed it for changes reflecting ours and others’ concerns.

We’d been told that there would be a daily vehicle limit in the plan, as a response to public concerns about operating the plan under no fixed limit.  We appreciated this effort on the part of NPS. However, the limit provided in the plan, 160 vehicles per day, is so high as to be virtually un-testable in the near future and we felt that, because it had been so rarely actually experienced on the park road it was not sufficiently vetted using indicators, standards and the new traffic scheduling model. We told NPS that a daily limit is a positive step, but the limit should be more conservative and that the structuring of the limit was not adequately covered in the Final plan and should be submitted to further analysis and NEPA compliance.

In addition, although we appreciated many features in the Final plan, we let NPS know that other aspects of the plan did not, in our opinion, meet plan goals and needed reconsideration, including:

1. Insufficient support for transit priority and affordability in the plan
2. Removal of caps on day-tours to Kantishna
3. Removal of the camper bus
4. Absence of “bus parked standards” for Polychrome and Stony
5. No language indicating how NPS will move to institute more equitable marketing for both tour and transit.
6. Absence of analysis of infrastructural and roadside impacts of the plan.

To read our detailed comments, click the link below:
DCC Comments on Final Vehicle Management Plan 7-20-12

You can comment on this plan until July 30th at:
http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=9&projectID=22494&documentID=48231

Or comment by email to Denali_Superintendent@nps.gov.

Since this is a Final EIS, we are not certain how NPS will use our comments. However, there is nothing to prevent their accepting suggestions and including them in the Record of Decision, a document that finalizes the plan and can be posted 30 days after the Final EIS is released to the public.