Transit is helping Yosemite address its big-city transportation challenges

A Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) bus in Yosemite Valley. (Photo by me)

Because Yosemite National Park isn’t in the middle of a densely populated city, many in the U.S. transportation industry would say only bare-bones, lifeline transit service (if that, even) is necessary there. In contrast to DC’s Rock Creek Park, Yosemite lacks a rail system that people who climb El Capitan can use to get back to the bottom of the cliff.  

But a lot of people want to experience Yosemite’s world-class hiking, stunning vistas, and unique alpine scenery. And in recent years, it’s become clear that when too many of the California park’s five million-plus annual visitors attempt to access the park by car, all they’ll experience is misery. During peak periods, drivers can spend hours staring at taillights, only for park rangers to turn them away from the most popular areas before they can even exit their vehicles.

The geometric factors behind the park’s congestion problems mimic those that plague overly auto-dependent cities. Paving over meadows, forests, and streams to build more traffic lanes and parking lots wouldn’t alleviate the crush of cars, though some would-be visitors may find there’s plenty of asphalt to explore in their local strip mall and not even bother to make the trip.

Instead, the solution – just as in cities – is to prioritize more spatially efficient forms of mobility.

The basic elements of this solution are already in place. Core-capacity shuttle services carry per-mile ridership comparable to the country’s busiest transit systems, the regional Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) bus network covers all of the park’s main roads, and walking remains the only way to access backcountry areas.

Improving these options – which I utilized on a recent trip to the park – is the only way to ensure we can preserve and enjoy this precious national treasure.

Most of Yosemite is car-free, and always has been

A view of Yosemite Valley from the Yosemite Falls Trail. (Photo by me)

Despite the traffic congestion plaguing Yosemite Valley (where well-known landmarks including Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, and Half Dome are located) the vast majority of the national park is not accessible by car. The National Park Service (NPS)’s ingenious transportation demand management strategy: not building roads.

Instead, visitors must use the park’s 800 mile network of backcountry trails – which includes portions of the famous Pacific Crest and John Muir trails – to get to Yosemite’s most pristine areas. The trails feature plenty of strenuous sections, but also amenities that would make people in car-choked urban areas envious.

For example, though the top of Half Dome would only be accessible to skilled rock climbers in its natural state, two 400-foot-long cables lining the steepest section of the walkway make it possible for regular hikers to reach the summit. Though the trek still requires strength and stamina, at least hikers on Half Dome – in contrast to cyclists on most city streets in the U.S. – have something more than paint protecting them.

NPS also maintains six High Sierra Camps, each situated along remote sections of backcountry trail. These small communities, catering exclusively to people on foot or horseback, offer hikers cabin lodging and meal service. However, the camps’ accessibility is largely dictated by nature – this summer, for the second time in three years, the facilities won’t operate due to unusually heavy snowfall that prevented employees from conducting pre-season maintenance activities.

To allow visitors “outstanding opportunities for solitude,” NPS regulates Yosemite backcountry mobility much more strictly than it regulates automobile travel in the park (or on DC’s Rock Creek Parkway). Backpackers planning overnight stays in the wilderness must reserve permits months in advance to guarantee access to the highest-demand trailheads during peak tourism periods. Most day hikers are exempt from permitting requirements, though those wishing to attempt the aforementioned Half Dome hike must win a highly competitive NPS lottery before setting foot on the mountain.

Where there are roads, there’s bus service 

A Yosemite Valley shuttle bus crosses a congested road. (Photo by me)

As the acting director of NPS in early 2017, Michael Reynolds fielded an angry phone call from Donald Trump after the agency retweeted photos showing the sparse size of the president’s inauguration crowd. Now, as the superintendent of Yosemite, Reynolds is in charge of the park’s efforts to safely and efficiently handle its record-breaking crowds.

In a 2018 interview with the Fresno Bee, Reynolds provided an excellent summary of the transportation-geometry relationship, explaining that it’s not the large number of visitors to Yosemite Valley that’s the problem, but the fact that many of them are using a form of mobility that there simply isn’t space for.

“The issue here is cars,” the Bee quoted him saying. “An awful lot of cars in a small space, all at one time.”

Reynolds was oddly defeatist, however, when discussing the possibility of better transportation options. According to the Bee article, he said the park “does not have the infrastructure” for a regional bus system providing connectivity between the valley and communities outside the park. He also cringeworthily told the San Francisco Chronicle that an “Uber culture” could help solve the park’s traffic problems.

A Sonora-bound YARTS bus ascends a hail-covered road out of Yosemite Valley. Good thing we weren't driving! (Photo by me)

Fortunately, the superintendent doesn’t need to design a completely new bus system – because one is already there. He’d be well-advised to try that system – YARTS – out sometime.

YARTS started service in 2000, and originally was primarily a lifeline transportation option for park employees. The system, whose four routes operate between Yosemite Valley and the termini of Merced, Fresno, Mammoth Lakes, and Sonora (serving towns, trailheads, and lodging along all of the park’s main roads), still fulfills that essential role. But as it has expanded, park visitors have also used it more and more, with ridership up 50 percent over the last 14 years. Today, more than 100,000 people ride YARTS annually.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I took a day trip on the Sonora route from Rush Creek Lodge (a hotel just outside the park entrance) into Yosemite Valley. Our hour-long mid-morning ride in went smoothly, with the exception of a brief delay to let a bear cross State Route 120. A bus lane through congested portions of the valley aided our travel.

We then hiked for several hours, making it much of the way up the Yosemite Falls Trail. But as we finished our packed-in lunches, thunderclouds loomed. We quickly descended the exposed, switchbacked trail, caught a circulator bus, and headed into The Loft at Degnan’s for a couple beers before catching our afternoon bus back to Rush Creek. By the time we boarded, the weather had deteriorated, but our bus driver calmly and safely ascended the grade out of the valley through an intense hailstorm.  

     

YARTS operates using intercity-style coach buses, with restrooms on board and space for luggage such as hiking and camping gear. Riders can pay their fares when they board – as we did – or can reserve a seat in advance. During particularly busy times of year, the transit system waives fares on some days.

YARTS has made efforts to integrate its transit services with those of peer transportation providers. At the stop in Yosemite Valley, riders can transfer to the aforementioned circulator shuttle system, which has two routes, serves numerous popular destinations, and is fareless. The shuttles are quite crowded, carrying nearly 4,000 passengers per mile of route length – a load factor comparable to that of San Francisco’s Muni. The valley also offers a network of separated bike-pedestrian paths and – starting last year – a dockless bikeshare system.

Outside the national park, YARTS connects to several other regional and intercity transit systems. Riders transferring from Amtrak’s San Joaquins train route (in Merced and Fresno) and Greyhound buses (also in Merced) can purchase through tickets, facilitating travel from locations such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento on a single fare. Also, YARTS offers United Airlines passengers free transfers to YARTS’s Fresno and Mammoth Lakes routes, encouraging visitors flying into Yosemite’s two closest airports that serve major airlines to take the bus to the park. 

And starting next decade, existing YARTS bus routes will connect to the initial operating segment of California’s currently under-construction high-speed rail system in Merced and Fresno, as well as to a Merced extension of the Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) rail system.  

      

While Yosemite has plenty to learn, in the future cities may also learn from Yosemite

Despite all the progress YARTS has made over the last two decades, only two percent of Yosemite visitors arrive by transit, demonstrating that there is a lot of room for improvement.

The existing YARTS system is designed primarily to get people to and from Yosemite Valley, and its timetables strongly resemble those of “commuter” rail or bus systems intended to give people living in outlying parts of metropolitan areas an "alternative" way of getting to and from downtown, with the valley taking the place of the city center. As a result, it can be challenging to plan a transit-based day trip to other must-see (though less car-congested) parts of the park, such as Tuolumne Meadows or Mariposa Grove. Also, the YARTS system is largely seasonal – only the Merced route operates year-round, with service on the other three routes limited to the peak late spring, summer, and early fall tourism periods.

Furthermore, infrastructural issues outside of YARTS’s control limit its ability to serve the region. For example, while (as mentioned earlier) there are bus lanes in Yosemite Valley, there are no such lanes at the park entrances, rendering passengers susceptible to delays caused by long queues of single-occupancy vehicles. Also, NPS does not plow Tioga Pass Road – which carries the Mammoth Lakes route – during snowy periods, preventing YARTS from providing a valuable connection between Yosemite Valley and the famous Mammoth Mountain ski resort during the winter. And the fastest road for automobiles up the Priest Grade, a segment of the Sonora route, is very steep and not maintained to standards adequate for bus service, forcing YARTS riders onto a windier, more circuitous road that’s ten minutes slower.

The view from Rush Creek Lodge, located just outside Yosemite, after a late-May snowstorm. High-elevation weather patterns pose a challenge to transit providers. (Photo by me)

Despite these challenges, plenty of factors indicate a promising future for YARTS.

For one, despite the small percentage of Yosemite visitors that arrive via transit buses, the portion entering the park on any type of bus – including charter buses – is a much greater 9 percent of total entrants, or about 500,000 people. Many of the charter bus passengers could well prefer to take transit – which should offer them more freedom than a guided tour – but may not know YARTS is an option, or may not find the system sufficiently frequent or extensive to meet their needs.

In some ways, YARTS has more going for it than urban transit agencies do. Specifically, improvements to transit in Yosemite – such as increased service frequencies, more year-round service, and routes and schedules designed to facilitate access to all parts of the area roads serve (rather than just Yosemite Valley) – may be less susceptible to the three primary types of harmful transit opposition, as follows:

Car culture:  The auto industry has had a strong influence on American transportation culture, and as a result cars seem to dictate everything from the way our infrastructure is engineered to a person’s social status. Accordingly, many people are hesitant to embrace other methods of getting around.

However, Yosemite is a place people – from urbanists to car aficionados – go to experience the outdoors, not to sit in traffic. For hikers and backpackers, it can be preferable to start and end a trip at different locations (possible by transit) than to return to the origin (required if driving). Furthermore, in contrast to many city centers, people are already accustomed to paying to drive into Yosemite, so tools such as congestion pricing could be framed as beneficial tweaks to the existing toll system. 

NIMBYism:  In metropolitan areas, transit projects connecting major activity centers often face opposition from local residents and business owners who fear change or believe in false stereotypes. This opposition often causes projects to be scaled back, rerouted to the point that their would-be benefits are largely negated, or even cancelled entirely.

But despite how crowded Yosemite can get, only a small number of people live there. Environmental preservationists concerned about impacts on local resources will likely welcome transit improvements and other changes that could reduce driving and help sustain the park’s scenery, rather than oppose those improvements on NIMBY grounds.

Also, in spite of the park’s superintendent’s aforementioned Uber references, the area’s small population and spotty cell phone service render congestion-worsening ride hailing impractical.  

Funding:  New transit infrastructure is expensive to construct, especially in the U.S, and it can be challenging to obtain the necessary funds. However, YARTS service increases would require primarily new buses and drivers, rather than new rights of way, reducing the potential of excessive scrutiny.

Furthermore, California already has relatively good intercity rail and bus service (by U.S. standards), so YARTS can take advantage of infrastructure elsewhere in the state. For example, YARTS hired a consultant to study the possibility of system expansions, but an extension to the San Francisco Bay Area was deemed unnecessary because a well-timed San Joaquins rail connection is already in place. The study instead recommended YARTS prioritize improvements on its existing routes and consider extending its Sonora route to Sacramento via Stockton, which would provide additional connections and help fill a gap in the state’s transportation system.

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Transit can be a mainstream form of mobility in a national park. The strong ridership on Yosemite Valley’s circulator shuttle system, as well as a comparable local shuttle network serving Zion National Park in Utah (which began service the same year YARTS did, operates as frequently as every four minutes on largely car-free roads, and carries more than 6 million annual riders) demonstrates this.  

However, YARTS has the potential to be a primary way for people to both get to the Yosemite region and move around the region once there, exceeding the Yosemite Valley and Zion systems’ primarily local functionality. To expand transit’s role in the Yosemite area, officials should treat YARTS as they have the park’s backcountry trail network – as mobility, rather than just an alternative to driving and parking. 

If YARTS and the jurisdictions that govern it can seize this opportunity, they not only would help people rediscover Yosemite the way it was meant to be seen, but could also play a part in fixing mobility in other places. If people travel to Yosemite and have positive, car-free transportation experiences there, they may wish to replicate those experiences back home.