Driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park could be more trying next year, as the park has lost its shuttle operator.
Flathead County (Montana) officials voted on December 11 to terminate their agreement with the park to provide the service, which it has provided since 2007. The shuttle service typically runs in July and August, weather permitting.
County officials said their decision was spurred by the fact that the fee the Park Service was paying them hadn't changed since 2007, while visitor traffic has rocketed.
"The agreement does not cover the county's costs to manage the system and does not support an adequate administrative or operational infrastructure," the commissioners said in a release announcing the decision. "The park provides only a nominal administrative fee and a portion of the cost of one permanent employee, leaving county-funded staff to heavily subsidize the current operation and preventing the hiring of additional needed personnel."
While the county has being received $800,000 per year from the Park Service to operate the shuttles, county officials say they need nearly $1.5 million a year to safely operate the system.
According to the county, the funding issue jeopardizes rider safety because the shuttle buses aren't being maintained to manufacturer's standards.
“We take seriously Flathead County’s concerns and thank them for their hard work and dedication to partnering with us to provide the service for the past thirteen years,” said Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow. “Learning about the challenges our partner faced made us realize that we need to explore new models for our transit-system operations. The cancellation of the agreement provides us with an opportunity to develop the next generation of the system. Now is the time to reset and think about what makes sense for the future.”
The National Park Service established the park’s transit system to reduce vehicle congestion during the years-long rehabilitation of the Going-to-the-Sun Road that began in 2007. That rehabilitation is now complete. The park is currently engaged in a planning effort through its Going-to-the-Sun Road Corridor Management Plan that explores opportunities to expand its shuttle system. This planning effort is an important incremental step in reviewing shuttle system operations and financial sustainability into the future.
Visit the National Park Service’s Planning, Environment and Public Comment webpage to see the complete Going-to-the-Sun Road Corridor management plan.
Comments
Now the park can go find a better deal. These commissioners don't know how well they had it with the NPS footing the bill for some services not at all connected to the park. This is all a stunt to get a knee jerk reaction from politicals at DOI to hammer the NPS and all of its deep state policies. The County should be the ones having to defend their operating style and why they needed to end this with a bang and not just move forward in partnership with the park tonfond a better model.
Yep. The NPS was basically subsidizing a semi-regional system that benefitted the park visitor but also local businesses outside the park. I'm guessing the Superintendent has already received a call from the Assistant Secretary for Local Kowtowing, er, for Fish Wildife and Parks over this.
As to why a local government entity was providing a service in Glacier, anyway. I read where the service was implemented in 2007, and why. Was the service put out to bid, and the county the lowest bidder? If so, I can fully understand the county ending the service as costs have more than doubled in 12 years. I'll be the new service will cost more than 1.5-2 million a year.
Glacier park staff was using transit gate fees for non transit operations which is against the law. Jeff Mow has repeately shown a desire to remove the American public from the park by his words and by choking out the transit. Now to limit more visitors Jeff will have an opprotunity to install a reservation system unlike 99% of National Parks. Jeff Mow and Jim Foster believe Glacier Park is their Park alone. Shame on them for taking $300,000 to $400,000 of the transit only fee to pay for some of the hundreds non transit employees in their bloated park were most employees are paid around $100,000 a year. Jim Foster took atvantage of our community by telling the county they were broke while the county did the operation at a cost of employee hours that the county tax payer had to pay. Shame on the park employees that are sharing lies in their comments. Glacier park upper management has no care for their fellow creature. They got caught!!
I would really like to know of a park wher "most" employees make over $100,000 a year :). I suspect that the real number is well under 10% of park employees, probably under 5%.
I am certain your claim that "most employees are paid around $100,000 a year" is totally false and based only upon your wild guess. Which makes all of your claims suspect.
yeah, no on the most employees making around $100K a year part. Glacier is in the "Rest of the US" locality for pay, so only GS-13 step 5 and above make $100K. A couple of years ago OPM started withholding employee salary data. but you can look at the 2015 salaries and see that only 3 out of 255 NPS employees at Glacier made $100K:
https://www.fedsdatacenter.com/federal-pay-rates/index.php?y=all&n=&l=WE...
Even with the last 4 years of tiny cost of living raises and a step increase for most of them, I would guess only 2-4 additional folks have broken $100K by this year. So "a Ranger" above actually overestimated the fraction of staff making $100K: it's on the order of 2%. [Positions don't increase in grade, so even replacements in those positions wouldn't make substantially more.]
I would guess that those top 4 postitions are superintendent, chief of facilities (or possibly a chief of planning), chief of natural resources, and chief ranger (law enforcement). I'm surprised that one of the glory national parks is run by only 1 GS-15, 2 GS-14s, and 2 GS-13s. Other glory parks have much more top-heavy staffing.
I have no direct hand knowledge of how the transit system was funded at Glacier - what I do know is that when I spent a week there about 5 years ago I stayed in a cabin at Apgar and other than going into town for dinner I don't think the rental car moved a single time. It was a bit past prime visitor season but I found the shuttle to be incredibly easy to use and got to everywhere I wanted to go. It will be sad if it disappears.