Great Smoky Mountains National Park is seeking the public’s input on a draft corridor management plan for Newfound Gap Road. The plan is required for park officials to seek designation for the road as a National Scenic Byway, which would open opportunities for the park and gateway communities to compete for special grants that enhance the travel corridor.
The draft Newfound Gap Road Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan has been posted on the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment website for public review. Comments received during the 30-day review period, ending February 24, will be considered in the development of the final plan.
Newfound Gap Road is already a designated state scenic highway in both Tennessee and North Carolina. Park officials believe that Newfound Gap Road also meets the qualifications necessary to be designated as a National Scenic Byway. The first step in the eligibility process for the national designation is the preparation of a corridor management plan that addresses a variety of roadway attributes including the visitor experience and sustainability as a scenic byway.
Corridor management plans guide the management of scenic byways to protect the important qualities associated with the byway. These are not decision-making documents such as those prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act, which typically evaluate a specific proposal or a set of alternatives for decision. Rather, corridor management plans provide an overarching framework for future planning.
Specifically, the park is interested in learning the following from the public: 1) if there are significant visitor experiences available to visitors traveling Newfound Gap Road that have not been considered and what those experiences are, and 2) if there are additional steps or strategies that should be considered that would help maintain the outstanding qualities of this corridor.
Comments
The park was established as "forever free." FOREVER means just that.
They tried to institute a fee to circle Cades Cove 18 years ago. And the public outrcry from Sevier County merchants shut them down. Hard. It was a huge embarrassment for the NPS. The current Superintendent is on record multiple times decrying the lack of an entrance fee due to the road presently in question. Over and over and over. Thank God for the foresight of the TN state legislature in 1952. They saw this coming. I wish we had saavy, forward thinking polliticans today. Take a look at the actual deed restriction in question.
http://api.ning.com/files/ow6WJwgqPYWo4P-p9xKYlAUzpBwgyd1p*55sl5LcdVQYfl...
Yes, the NPS is trying to pull a fast one here. And it will end the same way as the Cades Cove feeasco.
CAN SOMEONE LIST LAMAR ALEXANDERS E-MAIL ADDRESS HERE SO WE CAN ADDRESS THIS ISSUE?
DADA,
Here is Lamar Alexander's email address. But don't expect to get anything out of him. I know dozens of folks who have tried to question him over his support of Smokies fees and he just sends out some BS automated response about how the park is underfunded. But give it a try. https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email
We already have several Scenic Byways in Tennessee and none collect a fee. Don't know who came up with this idea that a Scenic Byway is somehow linked to a toll.
Ray.
It's not linked to a toll. But if you read the deed restriction I posted here on this thread a while back, you will see that NF Gap road is deed restricted from ever charging any type of fee, aka toll. The NPS is probably trying to bypass the deed restriction in an attempt to get the road redesignated. Then they can skirt the restriction that keeps them from charging a toll, aka entrance fee to the Smokies. That is what Ca$h and the NPS theives are trying to do. It's all about padding their bogus visitation numbers (11 million cars driving that road do not constitute visitors to the park, they consitute gamblers going from the casino in Cherokee to the buffet in Gatlinburg). The SMokies mgmt has been caught fudging visitation numbers once in the past year so suspect any data coming from the park.