This is an excellent time in the United States to fund park infrastructure and enhance visitor facilities in National Parks.

Especially with the Dollar as low as it is compared to foreign currencies, there is a great incentive for foreign visitors to visit the United States national parks, and an equal incentive for American tourists to spend their money at home traveling to parks and scenic areas throughout the US.

Enhancing alternative transportation systems, to permit visitors to tour America by almost any other kind of vehicle than an automobile could also be enhanced through enlightened transportation appropriations and stimulus spending.

Historically, the NPS has actually taken a more restrictive use of transportation funding than the transportation enhancements (ICTEA, etc) legislation actually allowed. NPS wanted to sink its money primarily into western highways, largely because those highways are so expensive to maintain, and so vulnerable to damage. But the NPS, had it had the money available, could in fact have been using more for historic sites and visitor contact centers, exhibits and other ways to make it easier for visitors to enjoy national parks. Studies have shown that tourists who visit parks also spend a great deal of money throughout the United States, and contribute significantly to improving the international balance of payments, which otherwise drains money from the US.

These efforts to fund visitor infrastructure in parks can also be enhanced if parks think about providing more visitor information in multiple languages. It is striking how few national parks, in high international tourist zones, provide visitor or interpretive information in more than a couple of languages. Go to Italy or France or Japan and see tourism books and interpretation in many languages.

These investments have a huge pay-back, and it makes sense for Congress to fund APPROPRIATE national park expenditures to leverage big tourism returns.

And well-considered investments also enhance the quality of life in America.

Just consider the examples Kurt gives of the parkways built by the CCC.

Skyline Drive makes an enormous contribution to making the entire Washington, D.C. region more livable. These visits from DC-types also gives them a sense of what their work in Washington is really about, as they see the villages and farmlands, appropriate AND inappropriate development, as well as the beauty and peace available in so many places in the United States.