Acadia traffic plan would require 'hot-spot' vehicle reservations
Courtesy / Friends of Acadia
Congestion at the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park resulted in the road having to be temporarily closed to visitors more than 50 times in 2017.
The National Park Service’s proposed transportation plan for Acadia National Park includes provisions that would require reservations during peak visitor season for the park’s most popular spots.
The Ellsworth American reported that the plan calls for a “timed-entry vehicle reservation system” for a section of the Park Loop Road, for the Cadillac Mountain summit road and to park in the North Lot at Jordan Pond House.
According to an NPS news release, the draft plan and environmental impact statement, released April 26, is available for public review and comment until June 26. Public meetings will be held on Mount Desert Island and on the Schoodic Peninsula. Public information sessions at three local libraries are scheduled as well as a virtual online session.
The plan identifies a range of transportation and visitor use management strategies, including a preferred alternative.
“The Draft Transportation Plan seeks to determine ways to provide safe and efficient transportation for visitors while ensuring the protection of park resources and values,” the release says. “The alternatives are intended to address the quality of the visitor experience associated with growth in visitation. These alternatives were developed from public comments during public comment periods in 2015 and 2017.”
According to the plan, the preferred alternative, establishing the timed-entry reservation system, would allow all other parking lots in the park to continue to be managed on a first-come, first-served basis; but the alternative includes an adaptive management strategy that directs park managers to monitor traffic and resource conditions elsewhere in the park. If monitoring indicates traffic or resource conditions worsening beyond certain acceptable thresholds specified in the plan, access to Island Explorer routes entering the park, vehicle access to other parking lots, or vehicle access to the entire Park Loop Road may be added to the reservation system.
Additional actions include:
- Right-lane parking would be retained in the near term but eventually phased out as other options such as expanded Island Explorer service and parking become available.
- The existing parking lot and restroom on the north side of State Route 233 at Eagle Lake would be removed and a new larger parking lot would be constructed south of the highway at an NPS maintenance storage yard known as Liscomb Pit.
- Additional parking would be provided at Hulls Cove, and the visitor center would be redesigned and relocated.
- The visitor services at the Thompson Island Information Center (on the west side of State Route 3) would be removed and the area restored to natural conditions. These services would be relocated to the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton.
According to the environmental impact statement, both beneficial and adverse impacts would occur on visitor access and experience under the preferred alternative, “although most would be beneficial.”
The alternative regarding Park Loop Road access is expected to provide visitors who obtain a reservation “more spontaneity” while also still allowing access to most of the road to visitors who don’t have reservations. It’s also expected to enhance visitor experience all the corridor and at the specified destinations.
However, the alternative results in “a significant adverse impact on the historic character of Park Loop Road because it creates a segmented driving experience counter to its historic design. It also involves some construction of modern infrastructure that detracts from the historic character of the road and cultural landscapes.”
Public comments will be analyzed and used to shape a final environmental impact statement.
Longstanding problems
The plan has been in the works for several years, due to strains resulting from increased visitation. On summer days, for example, sections of the 27-mile Park Loop Road — an Acadia highlight — are jammed with concession buses, commercial motor coaches, RVs, the park's public transit system buses, cars, motorcycles, bicyclists and pedestrians, posing traffic jams and safety hazards along the narrow, curved road.
A 2013 engineering study of the road to the top of Cadillac found it is impossible for the largest vehicles, such as buses and RVs, to stay completely in their lane when negotiating the road's three hairpin turns, posing hazards to other vehicles and cyclists.
Acadia set a visitation record in 2017, with the number of visitors just under 3.5 million by November 2017. At that time, The Mount Desert Islander reported the number was a record that eclipses 2016's record-setting number of 3.3 million for the entire year.
The number is split between Acadia's two sections: The Mount Desert Island section saw 2.91 million visitors, up 0.9% over the same period last year. The Schoodic section saw a 4.1% increase to 293,933 and visitation to Isle au Haut was up 1% to 8,781.
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